Health

Life Update: April 2025

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

Blogger’s Disclaimer: Not actually me.

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!)

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Life Update

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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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Steppin’ Out: My Reluctant Reentry into a Post-Lockdown World

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BLOGGER’S NOTE: Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on people across the globe. The intent of this series is not to make light of the pandemic in any way, but rather to examine the author’s idiosyncrasies, which existed long before the virus and, all being well, will be there long after. In these uncertain times, we must continue to take every available measure to protect our personal and communal health. Thanks for reading and stay safe.]

One thing I’ve learned in these many months of hand sanitizing, nasal swabbing, and banana bread baking is that I am a creature of habit to the max. Admittedly, I’ve shown signs of this tendency in the past – for instance, I’ll eat the same thing for breakfast every day for weeks before I force myself to switch it up. But under the string of lockdowns imposed on Britain due to the coronavirus, I morphed into my super-boring alter-ego, Captain Routine. While others bemoaned the tedium of one day blurring into the next, I reveled in the same old same old. I went grocery shopping at the same time every other day – mid-morning, before the lunch rush. I stuck to a fixed rotation of exercise walks, ambling in an easterly direction one day and west the next, traipsing south on the third day and north on the fourth before starting the cycle over again. I listened to an album every time I sat down to lunch – just one, all the way through, though I permitted myself the whimsy of choosing from a variety of genres. And I worked on this blog most weekdays from 2:00 pm until 3:30 or so, allowing for breaks to surf Amazon and Discogs. (Given that I’ve only managed to produce one post every couple of months, I’d say those breaks were many and lengthy.) It’s been a regimented, repetitive existence that has suited me just fine.

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