So I Have Cancer, Again
(And It’s a Doozy This Time)

Okay, here we go…

In early 2005 I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The diagnosis was, in a way, a relief after several months of discomfort and such frequent urination that I couldn’t leave the house without planning stops at all the public restrooms along my route. The urologist removed a fist-size mass of tumours from my bladder and then went back about 12 more times over the next four years to excise smaller ones that kept popping up. I underwent a localised chemotherapy treatment that lasted six weeks and endured many, many cystoscopies. (That’s where they take a camera attached to a long, thin tube and insert it… well, let’s just say it doesn’t go in your ear.) The process was arduous, painful and stressful, and even though I’ve been clear of bladder tumours for a long time now, I still have to have an annual cystoscopy to make sure everything is copacetic. I really look forward to it, said no one ever. 

I thought that experience would make me square with the C-word, but it turns out it was just a warm-up act. Now for the headliner: I was recently diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer. This followed a routine, and obviously long overdue, colonoscopy, a biopsy and a subsequent CT scan. The cancer has spread to the lining of the abdomen (peritoneum), causing a build-up of fluid, and it’s been deemed inoperable unless I get an A+ on the chemo treatment I’m currently undergoing, which my oh-so-cheery oncologist says is unlikely. Failing that, they’ll try to manage it with chemo and keep me alive “for as long as possible,” to quote Dr. Sunshine. He said this with that faux-sincere, annoyingly condescending tone doctors use that sounds like, I am offering you well-rehearsed words of comfort, Patient 4673, while wearing my patented “I care” expression. Of course, what I’m really thinking about is my upcoming holiday in Greece.

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