Cancer 13

09 Mar 2025

Back to entry 1

I recently “celebrated” my “cancerversary”, the one-year mark since my GI doctor phoned me up and said the fateful words – “you have cancer”.

At that moment, my universe shrank down immensely. All the external stuff, job, professional relationships, volunteerism, just kind of fell away, I had no mental space for it. It was just me and my immediate family and the many, many unknowns.

My experience since then has included two major physical insults. The “curative” surgery that removed most of my rectum, and the associated c.difficle infection that brutally wrecked my GI tract.

The insults really knocked me back. Moving around the house involved effort. Meals would lead to stomach pain and long sessions on the toilet. Runs were replaced with walks and then shorter walks. A trip to the cafe became my gold standard for “getting out”.

Now, I am immensely “better” than I was this summer. But I am still a very long way from the physical condition I was before (which was excellent). My body just doesn’t work as well anymore. This may slowly resolve over more months, or it may be permanent. As it stands, I feel like I’ve been instantly aged 10-15 years. I went into this process in my 50s and came out in my 60s.

A result of feeling weak and out of control is that I have a lot less confidence than I used to. This manifests in not wanting to leave the house as much, or engage with novel situations. I never know when I am going to have a “bad day” and feel sick or uncomfortable for 24 hours. Travel feels fraught. Staying close to home, feels safer.

I am a turtle, startled and afraid, drawn up into its shell.

To try and break out of this pattern, I have scheduled two trips this spring, one personal and one professional. They are both east coast, so there’s a 5 hour flight involved and then all the usual transfers and so on. And then just “living” in a different place. As they get closer, I get more scared. I shouldn’t. The worst case scenario is just “pooping a lot in a hotel room”, but I think the verification of worse-case scenarios is the scary part – maybe I am not someone who travels anymore.

Most of my other pre-surgery worst-case scenarios have not come to pass. I am still able to climb. I have started running again. I can lift weights again. I have done some middling bike rides. I have rowed on the ocean. I have started some building projects around the house.

But travel is (like going out for dinner) fraught with being away from the home base, and full of questionable activities (like eating for pleasure, or taking a walk not knowing where the next public restroom is). Hopefully these trips will go well, and I will be able to poke my head a little further out of my shell.

The next station on my cancer journey will be the first monitoring procedures. Colonoscopy and then a CT scan. The odds of anything growing back are low, but I still keep my fingers crossed, since they are not zero.

Keep f’ing going. See you soon, inshala.