Cancer's a B: Chemo and Radiation

Even though I was drugged up and in-and-out of consciousness, I vividly remember the first time the doctor uttered words "chemo". My heart sank and raced around my chest at the same time. That was my instinct - a level of sadness and the feeling to run away as fast and as far as I could.

It was instantly clear that I did not want to do chemo. I have come to a point in my life where I do listen to my instincts. They are generally more in the ball park than my over-thinking and analyze-to-death thoughts. Hey, I am Libra, so I will take a topic and bat around the pros, cons and angles back and forth until it's vapor.

For the next three weeks, the hospital had a potential chemo and radiation schedule in the making. I even met with a Chemo and also a Radiation doctor.

So in addition to being testing for whether I was Stage 2 or Stage 4, the thought of a potential 5-weeks of radiation and 6-weeks of chemo was weighing heavy on my mind.

Simple thoughts like going bald, a huge increase in daily vomiting and how to juggle the raising a 12-year-old while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. I didn't even need to scratch the surface on this topic to see there was more than enough stressful speculation scenarios to fill a decade or five.

Then there is the timeline of all this. During this whole finding out about cancer it was mid-July. My instinctive day calendar quickly projects that the end of the chemotherapy would be late September to early October, at which point they would then perform the surgery. If the tumor had shrunk enough to their liking.

The thought of my son Otis' schedule with school, activities and various leagues was overwhelming. So I decided to ignore all those speculative thoughts that comes with early guessing prognosis.

I decided to focus on the now because I have been through enough life experiences to know that sometimes an answer takes weeks to find out and allowing your mind to trail off into the land of speculation can be a slippery slope.

One thing I just couldn't get past is my gut reaction and feeling towards chemo. I have seen, read and heard a number of documentaries and alternative websites that are very much against chemo and everything it represents in the world of healing. I have seen, read and heard an abundance of health care propaganda touting the positives and survival rates of chemo. That isn't what this is about, no, rather, my view is defined by a much simpler example.

Now this law may have changed or relaxed in the past year or two, but the last time I checked, if someone undergoes chemotherapy, they can no longer be an organ donor. That's all I needed to see and hear. The treatment changes your body so much you can no longer be a safe or viable option for donating an organ. Honestly, the thought of that whole chemo organ donor thing jolted me pretty good, however for me there as more. Memories of my mother's cancer battle came rushing back into my consciousness.

My mother lost a battle to cancer when she was 52. Gallbladder cancer. By the time they found it it had spread to other organs like the pancreas and liver. During her treatment they did administer a chemotherapy for a few weeks.

Watching and experiencing my mother on chemo was absolutely devastating to the soul. Witnessing a loved one suffer through chemo changes your view on the treatment and method. It doesn't involve politics or documentaries or hospital propaganda, no it involves real life human beings reacting to the chemotherapy. It involves seeing the intense painful expression on your loved one's face as they just exist in the world.

Like I alluded to earlier, my mother discontinued the chemo treatment so she could spend whatever time she had left not in constant chemo pain. Being a part of the words and thoughts from someone who had experienced chemo, became my experience with the subject. So when I was faced with the thought of chemo and radiation, it froze me.

During my colonoscopy, passed out lying on my side, all drugged up with a camera tube up my derriere, the doctor wakes me up to show me the cancer tumor on the computer monitor.

"You see this here," the doctor said. "That's the tumor in your colon causing your problems."

"Is it cancer," I groggily asked.

"Oh yeah," the doctor said. "It looks pretty big to, I am going to suggest chemo and radiation before removing it."

Those comments about the size and suggesting chemo and radiation hit me like a ton of bricks. I have a garden hose with a camera up my ying yang, was just told I have cancer and now radiation and chemo. That's a lot to process for a warm summer day.

Fast forward to my potential of a chemo and radiation schedule and the reality I fear of the treatment. During the three week testing period to determine the stage of the cancer, a group of doctors were trying to figure out if I needed chemo or not. Apparently the tumor was in a chemo limbo phase, depending on the surgeon and whether they could safely cut it out.

There are six layers to the colon and my tumor had penetrated five of the six for sure. There was some debate on whether it had penetrated its way through to the sixth layer. The doctors were split. Some thought it had and some thought it wasn't enough to consider a sixth wall penetration.

This became a pretty important marker for whether chemo and radiation would be needed. The basic gist was that if it had penetrated through the sixth, chemo and radiation would be needed. If only five layers, they could perform surgery without chemo.

Luckily, or miraculously, for me, after the hospital determined it was Stage 2 and the surgeon said he felt confident enough to cut out the tumor without having to have me go through chemo and radiation. This was a surprise and an instant relief. No chemo and radiation. Whew.

But then, some of the fear came back. There is a period after the surgery where some cancer cells could come back or jump ship to another part of my body. If any cancer cells stayed behind and were not extracted, I would have to undergo chemo and radiation.

The thought of chemo and the memory of seeing my mother experience it became a powerful fuel for fearful and depressing thoughts. This is one of the reasons I quasi-blocked out anything that had to do with chemo and radiation. I would half pay attention and keep my mind on the non-chemo path. For some it was simply sticking my head in the sand, while in other camps, it was me setting my "chemo go away" intention.

That's the latest on chemo and radiation in my cancer battle. I was fortunate enough to sidestep chemotherapy before my surgery, but the chance of it still persists. Plus the cancer tumor had penetrated all six layers, but only small "fingerlings" had penetrated that sixth layer and the surgeon felt he could still cut it out. I was really happy my surgeon turned out to be a bit of a professional maverick with an awesome surgery success rate.

There is a big part of me that sees my crossroads with chemo as nothing short of a miracle. The whole chemo radiation treatment began as an instant sure thing, but in the end I may not need it at all. I know it isn't feeding 10,000 people with fish and bread, but for me, it is a personal miracle.

What I took away from this experience is that authentic positive thoughts and genuine selfless prayers can truly make miracles happen.

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