My Cancer Journey 1

This is the first in a series of posts about my cancer experience in 2008-2009, which I wrote about in 2010.

For me, one of the worst things about going through cancer is how it tries to take over your life, same as it tries to take over your body. Everyone you see wants to know how you are doing. It's great that they are concerned, but by the time you've repeated the medical report to a dozen or so people, you just want to scream, "PLEASE ask me about something else! My kids, maybe, or my dog or my cat. . . . anything but my medical report!" So, here's the medical report, in all its graphic detail, for those who didn't get the details they were curious about! It may take awhile to write it all down, but my hope is that it helps somebody.

First of all, I've learned that anyone who has any medical issue should get it checked out. For most of my adult life, I've tried to be at least somewhat health-conscious: eat fiber, eat fruits and veggies, make sensible choices about amounts of sugar, etc., etc. Not perfect, but not too bad, OK? So when I started having some occasional unpleasant colon symptoms, it was easy to figure that it was just something I ate that I wasn't used to, especially since it was often in conjunction with eating certain foods.

When the symptoms began getting worse, I didn't go to the doctor. Bad choice. Why did I make that bad choice? Well, for a variety of reasons. One, I had a huge list of possible problems and their associated health-food or home remedies to try. Some seemed to help; some didn't. Two, I didn't have any money. That's another story, but when your husband loses his job unexpectedly in the middle of building a house and you're trying to start a business, you don't run to the doctor for every little thing. I was and still am a member of Christian Healthcare Ministries for help with medical bills, but our share to pay is $1,000. Not a problem if you have a good income, but it's amazing how quickly you can burn through savings when you don't have a job. So I kept thinking that the problem would go away, or that our financial circumstances would surely change soon and then I would go to the doctor. So, I just kept going. Stress mounted up, bills mounted up, I was tired all the time.

Finally, after several months, I decided to see a naturopath/chiropractor who had been recommended by a friend as being independent of insurance networks, hence lower in price, who had helped her with some problems. This doctor advised me that I probably had parasites and started me on some supplements (not low-cost, unfortunately). She also advised stricter dietary changes. And sure enough, I did begin to feel better. I also began exercising more faithfully, losing about a pound every two weeks (something else the doctor had recommended). However, the unpleasant colon symptoms didn't go away. I made an appointment with my regular doctor, who reassured me that, given my overall health, it was probably nothing to worry about, but advised a colonoscopy to make sure.

There were just a couple of tiny little problems. One, we had been praying for a good opportunity to come along for our daughter Ashley, and she had been accepted for a teaching job in South Korea. I was stressing over that, and felt that I just couldn't handle medical issues at the time. Two, I still didn't have $1,000. So I put off making the colonoscopy appointment. In the meantime, my weight loss suddenly got a lot easier. Before, I had felt good about weeks in which I lost a pound. All of a sudden, I lost ten pounds, effortlessly.

Then, I got my wake-up call. I went to a football game one evening with my husband and two sons. During the game, I had an urgent need to visit the ladies' room and was horrified when my urge to have a bowel movement resulted in, literally, the toilet bowl being full, FULL, of blood. Feeling faint, I returned to Phil, Brian, and Luke and told them what had happened, and we left for the emergency room, where I was given an IV, a scolding, and orders to get that test scheduled.

A few days later, a colonoscopy revealed that I did, indeed, have a huge blockage in my colon, so large, in fact, that they couldn't even finish the test, and that it 1) had perforated the colon wall, probably causing the bleeding episode, and 2) was malignant, and that I needed to make an appointment to visit with a surgeon.

To understand what I felt at that moment, you need to know I lost my mother to brain cancer when I was four years old, and two of my aunts to horrible battles with liver cancer and pancreatic cancer when I was in college. My mother-in-law died at age 62 after a long battle with colon cancer. Having cancer was my worst fear; I would have cheerfully fought lions or been dropped into a pit of snakes if I could have swapped the cancer for it. And besides, good Lord, I didn't have time to be sick. I had a son in college and a son I was still homeschooling, in addition to working part time and trying to help my husband build a business. And my husband, wow, did he have issues of his own: business lagging with the economy, diabetes, high blood pressure. I had a daughter needing to make career and relationship decisions. On top of all that, I was plenty mad. What good had it done to try to eat right and exercise?

On October 27, 2008, we put Ashley on a plane for South Korea. At that time I had no idea how much the cancer might or might not have traveled throughout my system, how extensive the surgery would be, or if I would ever see her again, but I didn't want to hold her back from that experience. Then I met with the surgeon and told him I would take the first available date for surgery. He was kind and reassuring, saying I was the healthiest cancer patient he had ever seen (Huh?? What's up with that?) and that he thought a simple colon resection (taking out the bad chunk and stitching the ends back together) would be the end of the matter. He scheduled me for November 11--two days before the Eagles were supposed to perform in Springfield. My husband had somehow scrounged up the money for tickets as an early Christmas gift, because the Eagles were one of my favorite music groups in high school and college. I would have to miss the concert. I didn't care. I just wanted to get this over with and get my life back.