Stayin’ Alive
(Dancing Day to Day with the Big C)

Well, it’s been a year now since the Calamitous Colonoscopy of Destiny, which occurred on Easter Sunday, of all days, in 2024. (When the hospital called to confirm the appointment, I was like, are you sure that’s right?) It was on this usually joyous spring holiday that the doctor and his team found a plus-size tumour near the junction of my large and small intestines. A biopsy and follow-up CT scan showed that it was advanced colon cancer. It had spread to the peritoneum, or the lining of the abdomen, and was deemed inoperable, which limited the options for treatment. I was scheduled for chemotherapy, but was told it could only slow the cancer for as long as possible, not cure me. (Although I still hold out a flicker of hope for one of those miracles I’ve heard about. Come on, all you deities, get cracking on that, stat!)

Readers, it might not surprise you to learn that the past year for me has been a bit… extra. Two hospital stays in the autumn – one for 12 days, for an obstruction caused by the tumour, and the other for five, for an infection that turned out to be very early septicemia. Fortunately, that was caught in plenty of time and thwarted with antibiotics. Add many, many chemo sessions and a sprinkling of plan-foiling side effects and it has amounted to, if not an annus horribilis, to quote the late Queen, then at least an annus strenuous, to quote myself. But having recently “celebrated” the inauspicious anniversary of the CCD, I find that I’m doing pretty okay, all things considered. 

Which is great, and I know I’m lucky. I’ve seen decline from cancer close up and to be honest, given the crappy diagnosis I got, I half expected to be experiencing more of it by now. Yet, here I am, at this moment, feeling… kind of normal. I’ve bounced back from the hospital stays, my energy is good, my appetite is too good, and, not to share too much, but things seem to be working alright gastrointestinally. (Maybe those deities are doing their thing after all.) Every morning I get up and get on with the beautifully ordinary business of the day. I make breakfast, do laundry, run errands, linger on social media for longer than I should, eat lunch, listen to music, read, cook dinner, and finally, I toast the fact that I’m still alive with a glass of wine in the evening. And by “a glass,” I mean one of those novelty snifters that holds an entire bottle. Hey, I have cancer! Don’t judge me!

The hubby and I regularly get out to meet friends for lunch or afternoon drinks at the pub, and we go to the cinema and to the theatre and concerts on occasion, just like regular folk. (The medical advice about isolating while on chemo to prevent infections has loosened since COVID. It’s now thought that socializing, within reason, is beneficial to the patient’s mental health and should be considered along with the risks. But I’ve been strongly urged to never, ever take the Tube in London.) I mean, obviously life isn’t exactly like it was before last Easter. Managing the cancer has proven to be very nearly a full-time job, with bi-weekly treatments plus multiple pre- and post-chemo appointments plus blood tests and assorted daily medications. And I’ve had a few mouth sores and minor rashes and, one week in November, all the hair on the top of my head fell out. (It’s growing back, but it’s still very wispy and frizzy.) The most pronounced side effect of the treatments has been some nerve damage in my hands and feet, which has made walking long distances taxing, so we’ve mainly kept our activities close to home and relied on Uber to a greater extent. But I push myself to walk farther when I feel up to it, and I’m hoping we can resume some more extended treks soon. 

I am a little superstitious about declaring my current state of okay-ness in a public forum such as this because it’s possible that I’ll hit the “publish” button and then immediately keel over. [Blogger’s Note: Still here!] Ever-present in the back of my mind is the sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Speaking of shoes, I was putting on my favourite pair of sneakers/trainers the other day and I noticed that the treads on the soles are starting to wear down. I’ve had them for about three years and my first instinct was to hop online and buy a fresh pair, but then I thought, what if it’s, you know, a needless expense? Trainers aren’t cheap these days. Should I just stick with the old pair and see how it goes? Anything long-term like that is now subject to an internal debate. My optimistic husband is keen for us to attend a jazz festival near the Cotswolds in May of 2026. Where once I wouldn’t think twice about making plans that far in advance, now I worry that I might not be well enough to go. Or worse. I strive to emulate the hubby’s rosy outlook, but part of me thinks we should hold off on buying the tickets, just in case. The uncertainty of my future has made me prone to such existential fretting. Then again, the other day while I was having my chemo treatment at the hospital, I heard talk of a patient who has lived with terminal lung cancer for 10 years and is still going strong. So maybe I should treat myself to those shoes after all. And those tickets.

My oncologist hasn’t helped ease my worries much with his periodic assessments, which are usually cagey but punctuated rather jarringly with the occasional blunt smackdown. (He told me early on that the cancer spreading to the peritoneum was “the worst thing it could do.” Cheers, mate!) I did have a teeny-weeny meltdown earlier this year as I awaited the results of another CT scan, but the news turned out to be encouraging. The scan showed a positive response from the chemo. What constitutes a “positive response,” you ask? Good question, and one that I can’t quite answer because I was so relieved when the oncologist called with the news that I didn’t think to ask any follow-up queries. It was enough just to hear his tone brighten temporarily. I recently had another scan and I’m waiting with baited breath for the results. Whatever they are, I vow to be much more Columbo-like in my inquisitiveness. 

In my first post on this subject, published last August, I claimed that I’d made peace with my fate because my life to date has been more wonderful than anyone could hope for. That’s still true, yet as I enter my second year of living with the knowledge of my disease, the overall feeling of normalcy I’m experiencing  has left me wanting even more.  I may be in a holding pattern with no notion of when I’ll land, but I’ll take that over a sudden nosedive any day. And every morning, for as long as I can, I’ll shoo those what-ifs about my future from my mind and get on with the glorious mundanities of the day. I notice the laundry hamper, as usual, is overflowing, and it’s not going to empty itself.