by Herman Cain
3:00 P.M., surgery completed! Six and half hours.
Dr. Abdalla talked with GC, Mel, and Vincent.
Took out 70 percent of liver, 30 percent left to grow back.
Took all lymph nodes out (about forty-eight). Saw no surprises.
Removed one-third of colon and fused remaining sections.
“He has a lot of healing to do, but expect HC to do well.”
No blood transfusion needed, minimal bleeding.
“Dr. Abdalla said from his experience 50 percent of patients have tumors to grow back. If so, we will deal with it. But the fact that the chemo worked before surgery was a good sign. We would use the same chemo postsurgery.”
5:00 P.M., HC still in recovery but GC (my blessing) was able to see me for ten minutes. When I woke up tubes were coming out of me everywhere. Nose, penis, side, both arms. It was uncomfortable but I kept telling myself it was a blessing to be alive and able to have such a difficult surgery with a most capable surgeon.
Later on I was able to see Mel and Vincent for few minutes.
Next day I was moved to a hospital room. GC had arrived early while I was still in recovery. Dr. Abdalla wanted me to try to start walking around right away to help stimulate systems restart. All I could eat was ice chips for a while. Hospital stay was originally supposed to be a week, but it turned into three weeks. My digestive system was slow to restart, and Dr. Abdalla did not want to release me until it had. Many tests were run to see if there were blockages or complications but there were NONE.
Those three weeks were very trying because a lot could have gone wrong but it didn’t by God’s grace. Finally, my systems started to respond, but I had to start eating more. When I could not I was put on IV nutrition, which helped, which I stayed on well into my recovery at home.
It turned out that the heavy pain medication they gave me in the hospital was slowing down my systems. When I started taking Motrin instead of the strong intravenous stuff, things started coming back. Hallelujah!
AUGUST 24, 2006 (THURSDAY), RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL
We stayed in the Rotary House Hotel for a week before returning home to Atlanta. After three weeks in the hospital instead of one I was so ready to go home, but I knew I could not go home too soon.
AUGUST 28, 2006 (MONDAY)
Our best friends Gladys and Joel Ricks had come to Houston the day before my surgery, and stayed in Houston until Gloria and I returned to Atlanta. We did not ask them to do that, but Gladys and Gloria are closer than sisters and they were there for her and me. What a true blessing. They had driven to Houston and headed back to Atlanta two days before Gloria and I headed home by plane.
AUGUST 29, 2006 (TUESDAY)
I had a follow-up visit with Dr. Abdalla. I also met with a nutritionist, who instructed me to keep track of my calorie intake. Stay on TPN until calories reach about two thousand per day or more from eating food, and then gradually get off TPN. I forgot what TPN stands for, but it’s that intravenous nutrition I had to take through my arm. In a few weeks I was able to eat two thousand calories a day because I was sick of that intravenous stuff.
Dr. Abdalla told me to call his PA (Lee) once a week with updates on recovery. If anything unusual persisted I was to let them know. Thankfully, the recovery went as expected.
SEPTEMBER 1, 2006 (FRIDAY)
Gloria and I flew back to Atlanta! Fortunately, one of the boards I serve on as a director sent their company plane to bring us home. This was particularly helpful in that I was still not feeling very strong, and we did not have to endure the stress of commercial travel. Without the company plane we would have stayed in Houston about a week longer. I do not want to identify the company because some jackass might want to make an issue out of it. We are very thankful for the gesture.
I felt bad and weak but was determined to get home. I was able to get dressed and packed and we made it.
Joel and Gladys picked us up at the airport when we got to Atlanta. I told you they were special!
HOME AGAIN!
American Home Care provided TPN and periodic blood tests. Gloria became a great in-home “nurse,” staying on top of vitals and what I was supposed to do. She also became proficient at changing the bandages on my TPN line, and connecting the TPN nightly. I don’t think that’s in the marriage vows, but that’s what love looks like.
I ate aggressively so I could get off the TPN. I accomplished that goal in about three weeks, and continued to recover.
OCTOBER 10, 2006
I had my first follow-up visit with Dr. Abdalla and Dr. Eng in Houston. I had another CT scan and all systems looked good! I was now ready to start postsurgery chemo. They recommended six treatments.
OCTOBER 13, 2006
I met with Dr. York. His nurse removed the PIC line for TPN, because I was now eating enough calories per day. We scheduled all six chemo treatments to restart on October 23 and continue through January 3, 2007, every other week.
Gloria went with me for the first two treatments, because she wanted to know exactly what was going on as she had done throughout the surgery and recovery. It was about a four-and-a-half-hour process each time and it was nice to have her there with me. Joel offered to take me the last four times, and we accepted, to give Gloria a break. Did I mention that Gloria went through all of this with me with a threatening heart condition? Joel’s assistance helped both of us.
JANUARY 3, 2007, LAST CHEMO TREATMENT!
After each chemo treatment I would also have a pump attached, which would continue to inject chemotherapy into my system for two days. I would return to be disconnected from the pump until my next treatment. My last disconnect was on January 5, 2007!
I do not know what it feels like to get out of jail, but this was the most liberating experience of my life. I was not even focused on whether it all worked or not, because I knew the doctors had done all they could do, and I had done all I could do. That was God’s plan and all was in His hands.
NEW YEAR! NEW DAY! NEW OUTLOOK FOR 2007 AND BEYOND!
8
The Call to serve
If my people which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
—2 Chronicles 7:14
I’ve been a prayerful man and faithful church participant since childhood. And both in our home and when dining out, before I break bread, whether with family and friends or in business meetings, I always say the following grace: “Father, we thank you for this food for the nourishment of our bodies. And Lord, we thank you for this day and this fellowship. And Lord, we ask that you continue to give us strength to do the things that Thou would have us do, not our will. Amen.”
Given that I’m also a strong believer in using my God-given talents, I was convinced in 2006, after having vanquished life-threatening stage four cancer, that I could help to rally the voice of “we the people,” which had been hijacked by partisan politics, government bureaucrats, and the influence of money on elections and legislation.
While my having survived cancer against the odds was a major tipping point in my decision to seek the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2012, I first realized my need and responsibility to do so many years earlier, actually a few minutes before ten o’clock on the evening of January 22, 1999.
That was when I held my first-born grandchild, Celena, in my arms only moments after her birth. I’ll never forget that moment. As I looked at her beautiful little face, I realized that I needed to move beyond the corporate world to the political arena and use my time and the talent I’ve been blessed with by God to help make this a better world for her sake, and for all the other little faces.
While you’ve just read some serious stuff, the timing of Celena’s arrival was not without its humorous aspect. I wasn’t supposed to get back from a business trip out of town in time to be there for the blessed event—but I did, and my first granddaughter was born only
minutes after my arrival at the hospital.
The labor had already been going on for three days. I kept calling home and the hospital, asking my son, “Do we have a baby yet?”
“No, Dad, we don’t have a baby yet.”
Day two: “Has the baby been born?”
“No, Dad. The baby hasn’t been born.”
Day three: I was on my way back to Atlanta and I was supposed to arrive in the evening. I called Vincent when I landed at the airport: “Vincent, do we have a baby yet?”
“No, Dad. We don’t have a baby yet!”
“Is Melanie okay?”
“Yes!”
“Are there any complications?”
“No.”
“Why don’t we have a baby yet?”
“Dad, it’s a s-l-o-w baby.”
“I know that.”
I landed in Atlanta at about 8:30 P.M. At 9:30 P.M. I was at the hospital, up in the waiting area, near the delivery area. I went in and sat down. Vincent was there.
I said, “Vincent, do we have a baby yet?”
“No, we don’t have a baby yet, Dad.”
At 9:56 P.M. my wife came out of the delivery room with her hands on her hips, moving that neck—man, you know you’re in a heap of trouble when the neck is moving and the hands are on the hips. She didn’t even say, “Hello, honey. I’m glad you made it back all the way from Hawaii to Atlanta safely.” Her first words were, “You have a granddaughter!”
I said, “Wonderful! Is Melanie okay?”
“Yes.”
“Is the baby all right?”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s with the attitude?”
She said, “I’ve been with this girl for three days, and you show up and the baby is born!”
“She was waiting on Granddad.”
“I know she was waiting on Granddaddy,” she said. “I’m going to have to hear that story for the rest of my life: ‘She was waiting for Granddad to come into this world!’”
I went into the delivery room and saw my daughter and said, “Melanie, are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Is the baby okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Would you like to hold her?”
“Of course,” I said.
My first grandchild! I didn’t think: How do I give her a good start in life? How do I make sure she gets a good education? The first thought that went through my mind was: What do I do to make this a better world and a better nation?
I was so moved as I held my precious first-born grandchild in my arms that I was inspired to write the following verse, which I signed as The Hermanator, aka Herman Cain:
LITTLE FACES
As she lay there in her mother’s arms,
She was only a few minutes old.
My baby daughter had just had a baby girl,
A precious new member of a great big world.
My baby daughter said, “Would you like to hold her?”
of course I said yes, as my smile grew bolder.
As I picked her up with a gentle touch,
She was small, so fragile, and yet so much.
She had gone back to sleep after the struggle to start her life.
Baby and Mommy were fine, everything was all right.
when I looked at that little face, sent from God above,
It was truly the face of a miracle, and of God’s divine love.
For a moment, I didn’t know who I was or where,
I could only think of her and so happy to be there.
Born into the world with all the other little faces,
What will we do, to make it a better place?
I know that came from God Almighty, and I’ve been on a twelve-year journey ever since, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do in order to help make this a better world, and to make America a better country again. And I know that we live in the greatest country in the world, even though the current occupant of the White House doesn’t understand that concept. He doesn’t think that America is exceptional, but most of us think that it is.
I’ve been campaigning for many months now, talking to a lot of people and listening to them. And I’ve got to tell you: Their disconnect from this president and this administration is absolutely unbelievable.
But come November 6, 2012, there will be a reconnect; a very different kind of commander in chief—a CEO of Self—will be elected, one who knows how to make the United States of America united again.
9
“Forty-five”—A Special Number
And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us.
—1 John, 5:14
People often attach great significance to a particular number because they believe that it has had, or is continuing to have, a particular impact on their lives.
In my case, that number is 45. And given that I was born on December 13, 1945—my conception, gestation, and birth all occurred within that year—that number has been with me, literally, for all my life, to date.
The number 45 keeps on popping up as I go about the business of being elected—you guessed it—as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America.
There was actually one instance, in March 2010, where Mark Block and Linda Hansen, the executive vice president and deputy chief of staff of my campaign, had mistakenly thought that 45 had surfaced again. We were sitting at a table in the Capital Grille in Las Vegas having a decisive meeting and both Mark and Linda thought we were sitting at Table 45, but we were not. It turned out to be Table 5.
It turns out that the Capital Grille’s highest-numbered table is only 43. But not to worry: As you will learn shortly, we would get to enjoy the opportunity of dining at a table with that very meaningful number.
As the November 2010 elections neared, Mark, Linda, and I were becoming more and more aware of how often 45 was popping up on the scene. For example, I was participating at that time in an Americans for Prosperity bus tour in Florida when the driver, whose name was Johnny, said that he had told his brother about me.
It turned out that Johnny’s brother had seen me on Fox News and knew that I was planning to run for president, so he sent Johnny an article for me to read that had been published many years earlier by the Reader’s Digest. It contained introductory notes and the condensed version of the Austrian-born economist Friedrich A. von Hayek’s milestone and controversial book, The Road to Serfdom, first published in 1944 in Britain.
Dr. Hayek—who had earned two Ph.D.s from the University of Vienna, in law and political economy, and later became a professor at both the London School of Economics and the University of Chicago—expressed his belief in that article that America was facing a socialist takeover.
That’s exactly what people are saying about where the United States of America is today—that we are actually on the brink of a totally socialist takeover. I and others of my political persuasion believe that Barack Obama is fundamentally a socialist because we believe he simply does not understand the free-market system. And I fear that if he were to be re-elected in 2012, Dr. Hayek’s prediction of the 1940s could become the harsh reality of the twenty-first century.
Dr. Hayek also wrote: “I advocate that we press in the direction of individual freedom, and the concomitant responsibilities to ourselves, our posterity, and the preservation of the Nation and the Constitution for the United States.”
Doesn’t that sound familiar?
Dr. Hayek predicted that the government could get too big and spending could go out of control. Isn’t that exactly where we are today?
What was the year of the Reader’s Digest article’s publication?
Nineteen forty-five, of course!
While it was weird in itself for Johnny’s brother to have sent him that article to put in my hands, what happened later that week, when I was in Cleveland to give a speech, was even weirder. Mark Block and I decided to have dinner in the restaurant of the hotel where we were staying.
And what do you think the name of that restaurant was?
Table 45, of course!
When we asked the chef how the restaurant had come by its name, he told us that in the establishment where he had previously worked, private parties were often accommodated at a table in the kitchen designated Number 45.
Now let’s look at another instance of how that special number has followed me wherever I go. It’s a long story, but here’s the short version: In April 2011, during an eight-day period that Mark and I would come to call our “Hell Week” because everything was going wrong—so much so that I was even considering ending my campaign—we were on a crucial swing through several states and we faced more logistical challenges than I would wish on any opponent, among them chartered aircraft too small to accommodate two tall guys.
On the final leg of that trip from hell—we were going home to Atlanta after having traveled through parts of six states—our flight number was 1045. And if that wasn’t coincidence enough, on another flight—we were traveling in a private aircraft—when I asked Mark to find out from the pilot what altitude we were flying at, his answer was, “Forty-five thousand feet.”
Several weeks later, on the evening of Wednesday, May 18, 2011, I was speaking to a group of several hundred people at the Standard at the Smith House, in Nashville, Tennessee, and my message must really have been resonating because they kept interrupting what I was saying with applause and cheers.
Why?
Maybe it’s because I said things like, “When I started doing a radio show in Atlanta, it forced me to learn more about the problems and the solutions we face than I ever wanted to know, because, as you know and I know, 50 percent of the American public are clueless as to what’s going on. And that simply means that the rest of us have to work harder to get smarter people to the polls to basically outvote those that are clueless. And I happen to believe that we will be able to do that.”
Maybe it’s because I referred to Obamacare as the president’s “health care deform bill,” or because I said, “I, like you, I could not sit back and watch the president and his administration intentionally destroy the greatest nation in the world.” Or because I asked a rhetorical question: “When was the last time they fixed something in Washington, D.C.?” and answered, “The Revolutionary War may have been the last time they did that!” And maybe it’s because I told them, “As a businessman, I’d use the same approach to problem-solving that I have used to become successful.”
