Let’s see. Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, yes. I was trying to fend off the lymphoma beast, and the chemotherapy concoctions devised to vanquish it.

As things turned out, however, the cure occasionally proved worse than the disease. With time, though, the pharmaceutical miracles that seldom make the headlines prevailed, leaving the patient slightly the worse for wear but still able to string a few words together.

If you’ve had a relative or friend who has had cancer, perhaps you’ve heard of chemo-brain. There’s something to it for some of us who have allowed their bodies to be assaulted by sometimes highly toxic chemicals in the name of besting the malignancy intruding into our lives.

In my case it’s a matter of regaining previous mental acuity, an occasional slurring of speech and chronic fatigue, which everyone says is common after chemo. But remaining on the right side of the grass makes it worthwhile when the outcome is reasonably satisfactory.

These chemicals, incidentally, come courtesy of the same companies the trial lawyers and gullible juries enjoy soaking for tens of millions of dollars because somebody may have had a fatal encounter with an industrial-strength painkiller.

What the jury members seem not to appreciate, though, is that it will take only a relative few of these verdicts to punish Big Pharma out of business. The worst-case scenario is that our biggest and best drug companies will either be out of business or without the resources to develop the relatively unknown drugs that may save jurors or their loved ones from a life-threatening disease.

Another epiphany experienced along this unpleasant and often perilous journey was the mostly unheralded role played by care providers in the cancer-fighting industry.

When somebody is involved in the disease, the end — good, bad or otherwise — usually is described as the patient “winning” the battle or succumbing after a “long” fight with the disease.

While it’s true the human survival instinct is an important part of the cancer-fighting process, those who don’t get nearly enough credit for their unstinting day-in, day-out efforts are the caregivers. These are the physicians, nurses and their support staffs who not only work hard to perform what sometimes prove to be daily miracles, but also often shield patients from bureaucratic minutiae, allowing them to devote full energies to the most important job at hand — getting better.

These are the true warriors in anyone’s fight with cancer. And no patient, nor anyone in a patient’s support group, should forget it.

The caregiver’s life with a cancer patient is special because it’s usually a long-term relationship involving life-and-death issues.

One of the most melancholy aspects of the bond many of these caregivers forge with their charges is that, one way or another, the patient always moves on. They either happily move out of treatment or they pass on. Either way a big hole is left in the caregiver’s life, but life goes on, because there’s no end of patients needing help.

Although out of treatment and still vertical, my debt in particular and society’s in general to these unsung heroes is never-ending. I’m not in remission, and probably never will be with my form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. But whatever time I have left I owe to those who spend their workdays helping cancer survivors survive, whether for the long term or the short term.

To those who sent along expressions of support, thank you. They brightened some very dark days.