Cancer Update: Prep

I have honestly and truly been blown away by everyone who’s given to either GoFundMe (which you can find here and here) and subscribed to the Patreon. Thank you all so, so much. My panic over having coverage for my chest CT denied by my insurance is much lessened knowing I have a safety net while I appeal the decision. 

Quick cancer updates: The pre-surgery EKG and blood work all looked good (and confirmed my sensitivity to latex!) and my COVID tests have been negative, so all that’s left right now is to wait for surgery on Friday! Well, that and prep. 

Prepping for surgery has been… an experience for me. I wouldn’t say that I take my body for granted in general, but I am resentful of how much attention my body needs right now, and has needed for the better part of a year. I’m resentful that I’ve needed to start a health binder. I’m resentful that I’ve had to fill out an advance directive. And I’m hella resentful that I have to drink this immune-boosting vanilla nightmare drink that no chocolate syrup can make palatable. 

I don’t want this. I feel petulant and tiny and angry admitting it, but it’s true. I’ve been so, so lucky in having amazing support from my partner, my parents, friends, coworkers, and beyond, but I just don’t want this. I don’t want to move my work deadlines. I don’t want to wear this blood-marker hospital bracelet. I don’t want to count the hours between laxatives, I don’t want to be careful about what I eat, and I don’t want this Nestle-formulated faux-milkshake torment of an immune-boosting drink. 

I want this surgery, sure. I’m more than ready for Hubert to be gone. And I’m actually looking forward to the prep day, Thursday, when I’ll drink the human equivalent of drain cleaner and feel blessedly empty on the inside. (Hubert’s been, uh, blocking up the roadway, so to speak, and it’s been unpleasant at best and mind-wreckingly painful at worst.) But I’m tired, I’m itchy, I have hot flashes, I’m in pain, and I don’t want this. I don’t want weeks of recovery. I don’t want to feel like someone’s been playing operation on my insides. I don’t want to have to pay attention to my stitches, I don’t want to wait on the pathology to come back, and I don’t want to schedule appointments for years to come. I just don’t want this. 

Because that’s the thing about cancer. Even if they remove all visible signs of cancer in my colon, it could be hiding in my lymph nodes. Even though the CT scans have been fine so far, it could be microscopically growing in my liver and lungs. Even if everything is fine right now, it could come back, and we’ll have to go through this all again. Even if I do end up cancer-free, I could drink all this snot-dressed-up-as-a-vanilla-smoothie of immune-boosting torture, empty my digestive system from stem to stern, get a foot of my colon chopped out, and it could turn out that the worst of my pain wasn’t from the cancer at all, but from some other as-yet undiagnosed cause. 

Or, worst of all, I could be perfectly fine after this surgery and feel like a fool for saying anything about the c-word at all. 

I’m so afraid that this is all for nothing. I felt this way before the colonoscopy, too. What if they don’t find anything? What if they open me up and it turns out I just pooped Hubert out, and he wasn’t cancer after all, just some weird, weird cauliflower that somehow got stuck to the wall of my colon and got a false positive on the pathology results? I know this isn’t reasonable. I go back and look at the biopsy results again, just to remind me of what’s real. But after a year of playing Medical Mystery Diagnosis and learning to live with my pain, I don’t trust my body to look sick enough to be deserving of care. And I know that I’m sick! I know I have cancer! I know I’m about to undergo major surgery! But doubting myself is a habit too deep for even cancer to overwhelm. Somewhere in my gut, before you get to the tumor, I believe that I’m actually fine and I made a big deal out of nothing, as usual. 

Maybe that’s why they have you drink this immune-boosting hell liquid. It’s hard to ignore your cancer when you’re choking down vanilla-flavored Instant Breakfast’s grosser modern cousin, now with more fish oil! 

Anyway, I’ll call to get a time for the surgery between 3-6pm on Thursday, and then I’ll put out the world’s shortest update for those who want to be praying/sending good vibes/anxious at the appropriate time. Surgery should be about 4 hours, then they’ll keep me in a recovery room until I wake up from anesthesia and the surgical team releases me, then they’ll move me to a regular hospital room where I’ll stay for a couple of days at most to make sure I can eat enough to go home. And then, I will live in the glorious world of my couch, my TV, and the inability to do anything besides heal. 

As before, you can sign up for updates below, subscribe to the patreon to support my creative work, or donate to the GoFundMes if the Spirit moves you. Or, especially if you’ve been socialized as female, you can remind yourself that you don’t need to see your body as either beautiful enough or broken enough to care for it. You can just be kind to it. No permission required.