Good Things Ahead
Some reflections and stories on the one-year anniversary of being diagnosed with cancer
To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?
Christopher Hitchens, “Mortality”
I never wanna die!
I never wanna die!
Dave Grohl, “Walk”
A year ago today, I was sitting on the couch in my little home office watching cartoons. That sounds more casual than I felt. Really I was curled up in a ball on the couch, having not really slept thanks to the copious amounts of laxatives I had taken as prep for the colonoscopy scheduled for that afternoon. I felt awful – underslept and depleted of resources – but I knew I could brave through the next few hours. I was already thinking of what little treat I’d get myself for being so brave. I was leaning toward pizza. This was the light at the end of an uncomfortable tunnel, and the worst part of the day would soon be over.
We know where this story goes. If you’re new here, here’s a refresher. I woke up from the anesthesia and heard I had colon cancer. My friend drove me home and I stared out the window silently, I rush-scheduled approximately 300 more appointments over the next few days, borrowed another friend’s car to get to them all, signed up for the most expensive health insurance offered by my job (it was open enrollment week by chance), told my friends and family and coworkers everything, had a port surgically implanted into my chest to fast-track chemo to my jugular, and ended up in the chemo chair two weeks later.
Yada yada yada, here I am a year down the road, having gone through some shit.
I look about the same as I did last year, maybe even a little better. My hair’s shorter, but that was my choice this time. I’m a little skinnier, but I’m gaining pounds back by the day and I’m eating better. I can’t lift quite as much weight as I could before, but I can go to the gym for more than 20 minutes without needing to lie down. Got a few scars on my stomach and a little less mileage of large intestine, but you’d never know that at first glance.
I honestly feel a lot better than I did then.
Looking back on the last year, and where I was this time in 2021, I can say with absolute certainty that I like myself right now more than I did then.
I think that’s the best metric for personal growth and improvement that there is. Do I wish I could be the person I am today without the pain, the chemo, the radiation, the fear, the sadness, the surgery, the uncertainty? I mean, yeah. Duh. Maybe I could’ve gotten to this point without it. Maybe not, though. Cancer does a good job of magnifying the important things in your life, helping you onto certain paths you might have gotten onto eventually, but just giving you a little kick in the ass (or a tumor in it).
For one thing, I figured out that I could do something difficult.
That sounds like false modesty, but it’s not. The first 29 years of my life were stupid easy. There was never any real adversity, and I never truly tested my own limits. If something didn’t come naturally to me, or if I wasn’t actively having fun while I was progressing, I’d get bored or frustrated and stop doing it.
Cancer treatment wasn’t easy or fun, but I had to do it. It was really boring in some moments: Plenty of mornings with only the Today Show or HGTV to occupy me while I sat in a waiting room. And chemotherapy is just like any other waiting room, except you don’t get to people-watch, and a couple hours in you start to feel your soul has been drained from your body, so you don’t even want to look at your phone.
I’d say you can’t just quit halfway through treatment, but it turns out that’s actually not true.
One day I messed up my radiation schedule and thought I wasn’t due at the hospital until about 3 PM. I looked at the sheet they gave me again, and my appointment was at 8 AM. It was now 10.
In a panic, I called the front desk of the radiation oncology floor at Penn, told them I accidentally got my time wrong and is there any way I could come in this afternoon?
“Oh, yeah, sure. Whenever you want.”
I was so thankful. I hadn’t been so relieved in months. Fast-forward to the end of treatment, and my oncologist told me he was happy I never sat any sessions out.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, some people take little breaks here and there if they start feeling bad.”
Selfishly, I would’ve loved a day off from radiation. Are you kidding? Staying in bed instead of getting on the bus in February to go do all of that awful shit? Even if for just one day?
But, I also know myself. One day would’ve become two. Two become three. I would’ve found a way to try to justify skipping it whenever I felt like it.
It’s a lot like skipping class in college. We all acted like it was this day we stole back for ourselves. This act of self-care with a hint of naughtiness. In reality we were just missing out on something we were paying a lot of money for. And, folks, medical treatment in the U.S. is famously not cheap.
So, yeah, I went every day. And you know what? It worked in tandem with the chemotherapy and shrank the tumor in my colon enough to surgically remove it.
I spent the week before my 30th birthday in the hospital. They removed part of my colon, my rectum, and a few lymph nodes that were affected by the cancer spreading, and left me with a temporary ileostomy bag (which I wrote about before, too). That week in the hospital was hell. Basically, after tampering with my intestines, my digestive system was just like, “Welp. I forget everything,” and I was vomiting around the clock – sometimes into a plastic basin, sometimes onto the floor. When I wasn’t vomiting, I was lacking sleep, malnourished (aside from an IV drip) and unable to ingest anything by mouth. I could swirl around a wet sponge in my mouth instead of drinking water. The act of sipping mouthwash, even though I couldn’t swallow it, felt absolutely scandalous to me. Like I was sneaking little bits of some forbidden delicacy. My breath was never fresher.
At night, I had only basic cable to drown out the sounds of the hospital and keep me company until nurses came in every few hours to check my vitals or give me meds. Certain moments felt like fever dreams, where reality and sleep would blur together. Commercial jingles would torture me over and over again. Having gone days without drinking anything, commercials for soda were siren songs to me, and I cursed myself for not drinking enough soda in my life. I started thinking about all of the times I drank alcohol, and how I could’ve had a delicious Coke or Sprite instead.
You didn’t know how good you had it, I thought. Just out there in the world. All of the soda you could ever drink, right there at your fingertips. And you chose beer? You had original 4Loko on purpose?! That’s what got you into this mess!
A spooky old guy could’ve come into my room that night and said, “Push this button, and receive a can of Coke. But, somewhere in the world, someone you don’t know will die," and I would’ve pushed it until it broke.
The other strange moment that I remember most was when I had a dream I was swimming in the creek behind my parents’ house. I woke up at around 4 AM, and every molecule in my body wanted to be in water. I again chastised myself for not properly appreciating all of the times I swam in my life, especially in open water like the ocean. I asked the nurse if I could shower - now. She said yes, but I had to cover my IVs with a giant plastic glove that fastened around my shoulder with a tourniquet.
I dragged myself to the little shower, turned on the water, and watched as the faucet directed that water behind itself onto the wall instead of onto me. After a few half-assed attempts to splash the cold water onto my torso, I gave up. A week later, I got in the ocean to prove a point to some cosmic force.
By the time I left, though, I was in decent shape. I could stand up straight. I could hold food down. I had a more realistic relationship with fizzy soft drinks. I could think clearly again. I could shower.
A few days after being home, now feeling more normal but still fragile, I sheepishly messaged my doctor and told her my 30th birthday was that weekend.
“I know this is probably a bad question to ask. But, my 30th is on Saturday, and if I go get drinks with some friends, am I able to have one drink myself? What are my limitations?” I asked.
“No limitations. Have a good birthday!” she responded.
Having shown up dutifully for radiation every day, I had set a precedent of listening to doctors by now. But, when faced with the opportunity to drink as much as I wanted, I realized that I really didn’t want to drink that much, if at all. I had spent so many mornings and days feeling like ass that a hangover felt like I was wasting a clean day.
See? Growth.
I still drink, but I do that thing they told us to do at college orientation, where you slip in a glass of water between drinks. It’s revolutionary. You really should try it.
Plus, you’re never too far from an ice-cold Coca-Cola in this country.
More than anything, the way I look at myself, the world around me, and my place in it has shifted over the last year. It would be impossible not to reassess things after something like this. Everything in your life, for the most part, is shuffled up. But when that shuffle happens, you become pretty aware of the things that stay put.
My friends and family were there for me in ways I had hoped they’d never have to be: dropping off food, giving me rides from the hospital after treatment (and stopping at Popeye’s before my appetite turns into nausea), visiting me after surgery, buying gift cards, sitting on my couch to make sure I eat enough and drink water while I’m recovering from a chemo round, buying me hats for when I’d eventually lose my hair (jokes on them because I only lost about ⅔ of it!), checking in on me constantly from all over the country, and even setting up a GoFundMe without my knowledge and taking away one more thing to fear that unfortunately comes with being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness in this country.
I already knew I wasn’t alone, but it was even more clear then and has remained so.
That revelation that I wasn’t doing this alone came with a good teaching moment for me, too.
Even though I was the one going through the treatment and housing the mean little tumor in my ass, I wasn’t alone in this fight. I had to learn to be more aware of how my loved ones, including my own domestic partner, were reacting to things. I couldn’t selfishly say, “Oh, well I feel fine today and therefore everything and everyone around me is also fine,” never asking about how traumatic it was for others close enough to feel it, and how they felt that day.
In my 29 years of easy life as an only child, I was (am) often very self-centered. I don’t think I was a dick, but I was (am) definitely the main character of my own story. And when you get cancer, it’s easy to start thinking of yourself as the main character even more. You’re the main character of a movie that’s actually worth watching now! Hell, I started writing about it. But, you’re not the only character. The movie “50/50” is just as much about Seth Rogen and Anjelica Huston as it is about Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
I also had to learn not to put up a facade of being fine around my friends, only showing how much pain I was in to Michele at home. I saved the worst for her. I didn’t mean to do it like that, but I hid how awful I felt from everyone else, and made it something only she saw and dealt with. It wasn’t fair at all, especially given how large my support network was (is). My friends and family could pick and choose when they wanted to be involved with my situation. She couldn’t.
So, in the spirit of honesty, if I texted you from about November 2021 to April 2022 that I was “hangin’ in there, feeling pretty good” or “I’ve had gnarlier hangovers,” it was probably a lie. I probably texted you that, set my phone down, groaned to Michele, and then ran to the bathroom or curled up in a ball and whimpered as I hugged a pillow.
I started going to therapy just before the first surgery in May, too. It wasn’t necessarily to talk about cancer. In fact, cancer was one of the things lowest on my list of topics to discuss. But, I still felt it was prudent to tell my new therapist that I had been going through treatment for metastatic colon cancer.
Early on, we had some conversations about mindfulness meditation as a way to quiet the noise of anxiety. Anxiety was the real issue I wanted to get a handle on. That predated cancer by, I don’t know, 28 years.
After discussing it with her and reading a book I didn’t like about meditation, I gave it an honest go. I was on medical leave from work, and I figured it would at least serve as a way to start my day with some semblance of productivity and structure. I don’t do it every day now, but I do it enough that I’ve taken lessons from it into my “waking” life, and I feel a sense of calm as I go through the day that I don’t know that I’ve ever felt before.
I think I can handle stress a little better now, and I’m less likely to let something mundane stress me out in the first place. I panic less now. I compartmentalize things better. I think I’m better at being present, something that feels more important to me now than it ever has. I still have a lot to work to do with all of this, but I’m at least self-aware enough to recognize when I’m not doing a good job, and use some of the meditation tools to self-correct. If nothing else, starting my day with a few purposeful, quiet minutes can’t hurt.
I’d like to think I’m a little more compassionate, too. Not because of some fear of an impending trip to the afterlife, but because I’m not white-knuckling it through life quite as much as I once was. I can pay better attention to people. Important conversations have helped me get there, and I think I can try to see things from others’ perspectives a little better.
But it’s not all deep.
I feel like I’m better at listening to music, reading books, watching movies, cooking, working out, whatever. I get more out of it than I think I ever have. I can focus on these things better. Absorb more of the good stuff. Maybe it’s the meditation, maybe it’s just being happy to do mundane and low-stakes activities.
Writing on the topic of cancer treatment here has provided a therapeutic outlet, too, and I think I’m a much better writer than I was pre-diagnosis. And with improved concentration and mindfulness, I’m also a better self-editor. (Except for this one. I’m allowing myself to go long. Cancer card.)
I never really had a moment of “why me” over this past year, like Hitchens mentioned in the quote at the top.
It might be that I’m just agnostic enough to believe that everything in the universe is completely random, and also just Catholic enough to believe that it’s probably my fault and that I had it coming.
I’ve told my therapist and my friends that maybe that pragmatism was my brain going into some sort of fight-or-flight response, and my lizard brain survival mode kicked in. Almost as soon as I got told the news – the worst news I had ever been told in my life and hopefully the worst news I’ll ever hear – I started thinking about what was next. Not, “Oh, god, what’s going to happen to me?” It was, “OK, what do we do?”
Maybe there were a few minutes of “Oh, god, what’s going to happen to me” first, but I still arrived at practicality sooner than was typical for me – especially having gone from coasting by to Cancer Battle at the drop of a hat.
In that same scene in the recovery room, having had a nice little cry when the doctor left, I looked up at Michele through teary eyes still blinking away anesthesia, and said, “So, what do you think, like eight months of this?” She looked back with an expression that clearly meant, “I don’t want to scare you, but this is going to suck for a while,” and said, “Bren, it’s going to be a little longer than that.”
Eight months later, almost to the day, I was meeting with my oncologist, who told me that, thanks to the surgery to remove the primary tumor and nearby lymph nodes, and the fact that the other lymph nodes unable to be removed had shrunk to a normal size, I was technically in the “No evidence of disease” category. I think the word she used was “sensational.”
When I’m right I’m right.
Now, before we pop the champagne and play “We Are the Champions”: I’m not done. I have scans in about a week and a half to tell me if those leftover lymph nodes are still housing any living cancer cells, or if anything new has popped up. If not, I just have to be monitored closely for pretty much forever. That’s fine with me. Check me every day, I don’t care! There are all kinds of “new normals” that I’m dealing with now. What’re a few more trips to the doctor if it means I don’t have to do all of this again?
If the scans show something, then I guess we’ll plan accordingly, won’t we? But I’m not going to even entertain that thought right now.
There’s another Hitchens quote from his writing on cancer treatment that I think about sometimes: “It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory.”
I could describe to you all of the unique pains I’ve gone through over the last year – pain I had never experienced and hopefully will never experience again, and that I hope you never have to experience. Pain physical and emotional. Pain in solitude and shared.
I could spend a lot of time recounting it and dwelling on it, but I’m not going to today. Because today is so much better than before.
Right now, I feel better than I did on October 14, 2021, the day I was told I have cancer. Today, October 14, 2022, I feel fucking awesome.
Eventually, I’ll officially get the all-clear, they’ll remove that chemo port I have poking out under my collarbone, and I’ll keep living my life. It’ll be a little different than I pictured when I was a kid, but isn’t that the whole point of life?
I’ve always liked New Year’s Eve, not just for the drinking with friends part. There’s a real hopefulness in it that I am a sucker for. I’ve been extremely off-base with my hope, like when I told my friend, “I have a good feeling about 2020. I don’t know why.” But, I think there’s still a lot to be said for feeling optimistic at the idea of a blank slate. I even like Mondays for that same reason.
Maybe October 14 will become a new little private New Year’s Eve for me. I hope every year, when I look back, I feel better than I did the year prior, whether it’s from getting healthier physically, progressing professionally, learning some new skill, or feeling like I’m doing more as a partner and friend and son.
If I don’t feel better, well, there’s always the next year.
Editor’s Note: I know the date of the colonoscopy was October 14 because I have a photo of my butt sticking out of a surgical gown that I sent Michele right before the procedure.
Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Militarie Gun.
Even in the event of good news with this next scan, I’ll probably write about cancer again. I still have a good amount of funny, absurd, difficult stories I haven’t shared here. I’ll also keep writing about other less heavy things I love, like music, comedy, skateboarding, soccer, whatever. Sign up if you want. It’s free.
Consider telling your friends about this blog, too.