One Year

Abby mentioned to me the other day that this weekend was the start of her GVSU spring break.  It occurred to me to look at a calendar because it was the day before her spring break last year when I got the phone call from Dr. Lown that my biopsy had come back positive for esophageal cancer. 

Larry may recall that I called him at the last minute to reschedule our beer to the 15th, having just heard the news.

It was January last year when I first had the sensation of food getting stuck in my throat.  It was kind of like choking except that it was deeper down the tube and I could breathe.  I chalked it up to not chewing my food carefully enough.  And then it happened again, a day or two later.  I called my family doctor, Dr. Hazle, who referred me to have an endoscopy with Dr. Lown.  We ganged it up with a colonoscopy, which I had been procrastinating to schedule since I had turned 50 the year before.  Same doctor- same anesthesia. Dr. Hazle suspected that the clog was caused by some damage and narrowing from acid reflux, which I had been treating with nightly “Tums” for quite a while.  He said that an endoscopy procedure could also treat these symptoms by inflating a little balloon and stretching out the tissues.

If you have aver had the dreaded colonoscopy or endoscopy, you may be familiar with the groggy recovery where you may or may not remember what the doctor is telling you.  I do remember that he told me that my colon was great but that he had not done the balloon stretching in the esophagus because it looked like there was something in there and he had taken a biopsy instead.  Mary remembers him saying “It looked really bad” but I only recall that it was suspicious and they would reschedule the stretching after they ruled out the slight possibility it was cancer.

It was March 2, 2012 in the early evening when he called to tell us that the test results revealed cancer.  We were quite shocked.  I remember because in the morning we were planning to drive Abby to Chicago to get on a plane and visit her sister Alice in Los Angeles. We were bringing along Marlee and her cousin Isabel and the rest of us were planning to stay overnight to do the Chicago thing and go to the Shedd Aquarium. Reservations had been made. What do you do with this news?

We decided not to change our plans. We also decided not to tell the girls so as not to put a chill on the much anticipated spring break adventure.  The news could wait until after Abby returned.  

At a restaurant just outside O'Hare Airport, March 3, 2012

That was a good decision.  It was a fun little road trip going to the airport. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of doing a little Internet research and I had a hard time sleeping at the hotel. I called my sister Ginny, early the next morning. I asked her to tell my brother Rob and my other sister Betsy because it was really difficult for me to go down that emotional path over and over.  I called my mom and dad too.

Waiting in line with Marlee and Isabel at the Shedd Aquarium on March 4, 2012

 The rest is captured in my blog, which I re-activated after sending out some emails to some key friends to leak the news in my various circles.

On the occasion of this one-year anniversary, I went back and re-read the first couple of months worth of posts, starting last March.  It is quite a gripping narrative!  I had forgotten a lot of the details and was grateful for the decision to write down the experiences soon after they happened.  I wrote about pain and fear and a nasty cough that I barely remember now.  In fact, besides the physical changes I carry with me every day (scars, small eating capacity, shaved head, neuropathy) there are relatively few cancer artifacts around me.  I take vitamin supplements instead of medicines. Life is fairly normal. My outlook is positive and getting more so. I’m on Social Security disability so I am freed up to do volunteer projects and lower-stress work. I am 170 pounds instead of the 210 pounds I was a year ago and my feet thank me for this.  I am off blood pressure meds and cholesterol drugs. All the strangeness of the wonderful outpouring of sympathy has subsided so I no longer feel the pressure to keep people’s spirits up.  Despite, the statistics and what my oncologist, Dr. Scott tells me, it seems like I am cured. I will try to live like that every day if I can. My hope is that this one-year cancer journal will become a curious, ancient artifact about one difficult year in my long life; a year that made me a better, more aware, and grateful person.

My friend Laurie was diagnosed with cancer last year too.  She had her one-year anniversary about a month ago.  She confided in me her fear of recurrence, just before her 1-year scans.  Every ache or pain raises anxiety that this may be the cancer knocking on the door in some new way.  I do get that. What is that twinge in my chest?  Why do I have a headache?  What if?  Laurie’s scans were all good and those fears (and aches and pains) evaporated with the news.  It will likely be a while before those lurking fears totally dissipate.  My next CT scan is in two weeks and you can bet I’ll have panic moments.

Life is still more precious than ever and watching TV commercials is the lowest form of unimportant use of time I can imagine.  In spite of that, I helped make one last week. It was more about helping a friend and maintaining my craft.  Like we used to say back in my Public Access Television days, “Don’t watch television, make television.”   I had fun, even if I care nothing about sales or furniture or the "happiness" those bring to some people. Please forgive me for adding to the mind clutter in the universe.

And if you are new to my blog or even if you are a long time follower, check out last March and April’s entries and enjoy them as re-runs. Pretty hair-raising stuff!  Glad to be feeling this good after all of that!