Turning 50 was going to be great. My children were getting married, one in June and one in September, there was so much to look forward to and to do. At my annual Ob-Gyn appointment, my Doctor recommended that I have a colonoscopy. She gave me the card of a doctor to contact which I promptly hung the card on my refrigerator, mentally noting that I would call after the weddings.
The weddings were beautiful with no major catastrophes and now I had time to relax, or so I thought. Life just happens to get in the way of taking care of yourself when you are the caretaker. So, that colonoscopy would have to wait.
At 53, I find myself at my doctor’s office with some very vague digestive complaints. He recommends a colonoscopy. I agree, now is the time to really get this scheduled. But, who am I going to get to take me. After all, I’m usually the one running everyone everywhere. My husband has a very demanding job and I do not want to inconvenience him by asking him to take time off of work to do this for me. Plus, trying to arrange this appointment with his schedule could be a nightmare. I go ahead and schedule the appointment hoping he can take me or that I can get someone to give me a ride and stay with me during the procedure.
Cancer is such a serious matter that with your permission, I would like to take a lighter approach in telling my story, for humor is one of the things that saw me through.
To begin with, when people ask me what kind of cancer I had, I almost always respond, “colon cancer”. Colon is… almost a pleasant word. It sounds like it could be French, maybe a cousin to cologne. In reality, I was avoiding the use of the “R” word, there’s no way to make rectal sound pretty. And I didn’t want to confuse people who think of rectum as a way to describe a car crash, you know, rectum = “darn near killed ‘em”.
To be serious for a moment, my main symptom was bleeding, day in and day out. It is amazing how we can talk ourselves into believing that what we see with our own eyes must be something else, and not the dreaded ”C”. This went on for over a year and a half, plenty of time for the tumor to have metastasized and left me with a death sentence. Then my guardian angel, my youngest sister Deb, learned of the bleeding and wouldn’t leave me alone until I had it checked out. I knew what they would find and had nearly emptied my retirement to pay off as many outstanding bills as I could so my children wouldn’t be saddled with them. I also went through boxes of old photos and wrote on the back the people’s names or the occasion. Just a month earlier I had been laid off from my job and my health insurance was cancelled. I didn’t see how I could submit to cancer treatment with no insurance to cover those costs and no job to cover everyday expenses. Again, my sister came to my rescue. “You have to save your life first, then you can deal with those other things”. I felt like Indiana Jones stepping off the cliff in “The Last Crusade”, totally unsure of what my fate would be.
