START YOUR ENGINES

For some friends and followers this may come as a surprise but the time has come to share.  A big step, especially for an introvert like myself.  Being public about whats private is a 'no no,' usually.  But this isn't usual.  Far from it.  I had cancer.  These rants/reminiscences/wanderings will be serious, ridiculous, uncomfortable, maybe funny, sometimes practical, full of the hopeless, hopeful and hopefully somewhat illuminating information.  Its one person's relationship with dis ease (as an herbal guru likes to call it).  Roughly 140,000 people are diagnosed each year with colorectal cancer.  90 percent of all new cases are over the age of fifty.  That puts me in the 10 percent of younger lucky ones.  Add Lynch Syndrome to the list and I become even more lucky, I become a 3 percenter.   I've finally made it!  I've become a statistic.             

Back story: December 20 something 2014.  After months battling an upset stomach and irritable bowel I decided to do something about it.  I did something that required strength, commitment and athletic determination.  I did what any man would do in my situation.

I went skiing.  

Good friends rented a condo in Jackson Hole for a week of downhill and gluttony.  The perfect storm for a blocked upper intestine.  Juliet and I were determined to have a new year somewhere out of the norm, exciting and beautiful.  As we drove back home from our post card holiday my GI (Gastro-Intestinal) pain increased.  So much so we decided to stop for a night in Salt Lake.  I swallowed pain with refusal and handfuls of Advil (just about the worst pill you can take while battling a tumor).  I found ways of sleeping that hurt less, legs up on a pillow, left side facing down, drinking excess water.  If I told Juliet just how bad it was she'd force me to visit the 'man in white.'  My distaste, or rather disgust of hospitals propelled me into secrecy and refusal.  You see, women may have a higher "pain" threshold but men have a higher "denial" threshold.  I simply refused to accept the fact that anything serious was wrong with me, thereby skirting the men in white.     

Eventually I struck a compromise,  I'd see a naturopath.  Naturopaths seldom wear white, or so I thought.  I figured maybe I had some deficiency or stress that could be holistically encouraged to disappear.  This made sense as I'd never been sick like this in my life.  Never been forced on medicine except that one time in drama school when Sandy made out with the cast of a Chris Durang play giving each of us mononucleosis. It wasn't her fault really, it was the stage directions.  So, besides mono I never had anything more serious than a cold and the rare flu.  I was healthy, in shape-- convinced my life would live eternal.  I was lying like congress.   

After an ineffective week of vitamins and laxatives  (by this time I spent a few hours a day curled up in a ball of intense cramps) the very competent naturopath encouraged me- rather ordered me- to get a CAT scan, and I obeyed.   Btw CAT stands for computerized axial tomography, which loosely translated means: blurry black and white images near impossible to read even for technicians schooled in the thing.  We have 3D imax movies to entertain us, but only a CAT to diagnose us.  Go figure.  The technician suggested checking into the local hospital to see if they could point me to a specialist who could determine more accurately the cause of my symptoms as the cat seemed to be inconclusive.  He actually spoke in run-ons just like that.  After a few hours on a bed in the hallway of the emergency room the doc on call finally surmised I had irritable bowel syndrome, perhaps some access trapped fluid, maybe a prehistoric poo.  Not much they could do.  They suggested a high colonic would do me good.  I went to get my colonic and thankfully thats when a higher power intervened to save my life. 

I lost my wallet.  

If I hadn't lost my wallet it would've been the most painful and possibly deadly treatment I could've had for someone in my situation.  To this day I bow across the alter and give thanks to the gods that misplaced my wallet.  So ended weeks of mis diagnosis.    

I went back home in search of wallet and more importantly to re sort the garage.  I needed a break.  The place was a mess and besides, I had to find something to take my mind off the mystery.  More laxatives and pain killers and garbage bags full of shit.  What a metaphor.  

A friend in Los Angeles finally had had it with my weekly update on constipation and irritation- she ordered me to Providence Hospital in Santa Monica.  There, I met the most wonderful GI doctor.  It was in her office on that first visit where I heard the word "tumor" as it might apply to me.  My sacred denial kicked into overdrive and stayed with me all the way through the colonoscopy.  As I was laying on the table about to meld with MJ's chemical lover (propofol) I looked into my doc's eyes.  She was smiling, but I read something different.  The hammer fell, I was out.

I woke up what seemed like seconds later to the news.  I had a tumor in my colon, requiring immediate surgery.  I was so out of it I had no idea what was real and what wasn't.  The look on Juliet's face and my father's nervous smile confirmed I wasn't dreaming.  The information was real.  Holy shit.  I'm too young for this.  NOT PART OF THE PLAN.  

Well, it was part of the plan because there I was.  Simple as that.  January 21st I rolled into surgery.    

I don't remember waking up, but apparently I did and with that came the news: stage 3C colon cancer. Yep.  I was handed my sentence.  The sentence that called for a dreaded series of treatments short-named 'chemo.'  You see there are two main factors that make up stage 3C thereby requiring chemotherapy (at least so say the medical world).  The first factor is how deep the tumor spread through the different layers of tissue that comprise the wall of the colon, and the second factor is the discovery of infected lymph nodes.  In my case, the tumor took up the entire circumference of the colon wall: 7cm.  One out of twenty four lymph nodes was infected.   I named the tumor "F*ck Face." It's now in a jar in a basement somewhere around 26th street and Santa Monica Blvd.  Creepy.  It took me two months to recover from surgery before chemo would take the reigns.  1 session every other week for 6 months.  12 treatments in all.  This was standard protocol for the statistic that I'd become.  Two therapies in one: oxaliplatin and 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin (or 5FU).  I call this period of time my half life.  One week dead, one week alive. 

As of tomorrow I'll be halfway through treatments.  Lots of wisdom gained mainly after the facts. Hopefully, if its you next you'll do things slightly different.  Maybe you can be a little less dumb and tad more smart.  Perhaps you won't rely on time and your denial to sort things out.  You might even go to the doctor or better yet begin your own healing regime.  You might understand that symptoms are signposts.  You might realize that health has far more to do than just surgery, radiation and chemo.  This site is about the last five months and the months to continue.  Its about balancing between western medicine and natural healing.  I didn't allow myself much of a choice in the beginning so I've been straddling.  Besides, I don't believe that it has to be one or the other.  Anyway, life has changed and will forever be changed.  And believe it or not I'm grateful.  This could either be the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to me.  Truth is both are right.  But there's no average, no statistic on how I feel or where this will take me.  As a friend told me, its all a choice.  So I'm choosing to make this good and share in the hope that good will spread.          

I could go on, so I will...