Cancer Confidential

If you're going to go through hell, keep going

The worst parts of being newly diagnosed with cancer are waiting, and not knowing.

In the early days, there is a whirlwind of activity with doctor appointments, scans and tests. I’ve been poked and prodded everywhere, even in places where the sun doesn’t shine. Carbon dioxide was blown up me arse, for a colonography which is done virtually because my surgeon couldn’t get a view of my colon due to the squatter Joel the Cancer Troll.

In a colonography, the technician blows up your colon like a balloon and takes pictures of it. I was asked to “not clench” — which is apparently a thing, mostly among embarrassed men.

“Try to hold the gas in,” the burly but sweet technician advised.

Which I did, and thankfully didn’t embarrass myself.

I was told to drink gallons of water, contrast, laxatives and sit with the stuff slushing around my interior. And I’ve been scanned up and down to make sure Joel hasn’t invaded any other parts of my body. (Thankfully, it’s all clear, as far as the scans can see, except for little Jackie Chan, a mean little polyp who is in my upper intestines hoping to graduate from the Troll Cancer Academy one day (spoiler alert! he won’t).

Drops of my blood have been tested, all organs have been examined, and I have been given the green light for surgery on May 9th. I have been reminded to steer clear of people and germy places for the next month: no gym, no dinners with friends, no family gatherings, to make sure I don’t have to punt my surgery date.

Now we play the waiting game. And that, all cancer patients know, is a terrible place for a head to be. For the past month, I’ve been trying to distract myself by books but even the most harmless, innocuous books, like Roy McGregor’s memoir, Paper Trail, hits a dangerous note at the end as he details the death of his beloved wife Ellen from cancer.

I’m also reading books that are not good for me, especially in my state-of-mind, like Delia Ephron’s terrific memoir, Left at 10th in which she writes about her battle with leukemia, the kind that killed her sister Nora Ephron. It’s been a tough read but at least, in her book, the heroine lives and finds new love after the loss of her sister, her husband and her beloved dog.

Left at 10th is being made into a Broadway play by Delia who is now nearly 80 years old. Hope floats.

She’s still standing, and so will I be. I believe it.

I was made for this.

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The word cancer pops up in the most weird places, like at the gym when I cancelled my membership because they won’t let me put it on pause. The nice man smiled when I told him I have to have cancer surgery.

“I’ve been where you are now,” he said, pointing to his neck where a cancerous tumor was removed a few years back. “It was the size of a baseball.”

The poor fellow couldn’t have been 30.

It’s hard to think about what’s on the other side of the surgery. If all goes well, it will be a simple procedure that lasts about three and a half hours, in which Dr. B. slices and dices, then re-sects. He won’t know what will happen til he cuts me open and gets his hands in there, he says. If Joel has broken through the wall, then all bets are off, and chemo will be required, but he gave me a thumbs up as I left the consult. He seems pretty confident, and I need that right now.

I told his nurse that my hope was to have a steak dinner on my birthday in early July. And she laughed and said she was sure I’d be eating barbecue before that.

I have to keep reminding myself that I have a nearly blocked colon thanks to Joel. When the blockage goes, so will my suffering because I will have a normal digestive system again. I haven’t had one for years. All I could do was manage it.

For now, it’s white stuff, no fresh veggies and fruit, and lots of liquids. This means bagels and cream cheese, ripe bananas, Chinese hot and sour soup, and a decent dinner with a protein, rice or mashed potatoes, as well as the occasional bag of chips as a chaser.

My great luxury is a Starbuck’s latte, which I have nearly every day now. When I’m standing in line at Starbuck’s, I take in all the action, literally smell the coffee, and cool my heels at the specialty coffee counter. I marvel at the incredible array of drinks, all sugary, foamy, and laced with caramel, chocolate, and whipped cream. It’s at Starbuck’s that I feel like a normal person, paying for over-priced coffee and a waft of jazz.

Aside from the daily latte, dairy isn’t going down well at all, nor is the Ensure which actually makes me want to vomit. There’s something about these meal replacement drinks that seems so unnatural, so inhuman.

But I have to drink them occasionally because I am starving and slightly malnourished. I have had to find some alternatives especially in the middle of the night when my tummy gurgles and demands attention. Activia drinks seem to hit the spot.

Believe me, I’m not complaining. It’s just my tummy talking.

Perhaps the worst of playing the waiting game is the odd panic attack that slips by me. Yesterday, Scott and I tried grocery shopping and I thought I was going to pass out. I left my husband to finish the groceries, and went to sit in the car and do my breathing exercises.

This panic attack came out of the blue.

I haven’t had one in years. They usually happen to me after I’m come out the other end of a huge life crisis. My anxiety lays in wait for me and I have to be wary.

I’ve learned to treat anxiety with Listerine Strips, elastic bands, cognitive behavior therapy and most recently guided meditation. On my worst days, I hide under a blanket and listen to Deepak Chopra reminding me that this too shall pass. To live in the moment. That I am not defined by cancer, that my past did not give me cancer.

And Winston Churchill.

If you’re going to go through hell, keep going.

Namaste.

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