Bliss

And Next Steps

I AM BY MYSELF! I AM BY MYSELF!

It is not Shouty Thursday but this worth shouting about.

I love my children. I adore my husband. AND I am so excited to have a day to myself, knowing that kiddos and husband are off happily riding bikes or slashing invasive Scotch Broom, whichever they fancy.

This is a part of the bliss. The bliss of family and connection through understanding and mattering is balanced, for me, by the bliss of having the space and time to integrate the craziness of this life. Like breathing in must be met with breathing out. If my family is my oxygen, today is the day I get to breathe out the carbon dioxide. Later, I’ll be all puffed out, my heart rate will have slowed and they will return with noise and screams and laughter and tears and we will eat a previously-happily-pastured roast duck and they will tell me about their day. Endlessly. And I’ll be sucking in my oxygen once again, as if I never had any.

Today I get to care for myself, my body and my mind. Today I get to do yoga while the ducks watch curiously, wanting to be near me for safety, but wary of Zephyr who sticks closer.

Zeph seems to know when I am meditating and comes over and sticks her schnoz in my neck and breathes on me. She also strategically places her ball when I am practicing yoga, so that I have to move it (throw it) in order to continue.

Oh, you might want to know how things are going in my cancer-oriented world.

So just before my laparoscopy, Evan Ong (the surgeon) came in, relaxed but ramped up, if you can imagine that. He said he’d talked to Chirag Shah the gynecologist, and they were thinking they could get me in for a big surgery two weeks away. He said Shah was excited about it. That’s nice, I thought. Though I was happy. The phrase dream team popped into my head at that moment.

But after surgery, the nurse let me talk to Matt. I think she was trying to keep me in bed. I had woken up and told her I had to get up to help my shoulders. No Babes, you literally just got out of surgery. You cannot get up yet. You will be able to get up in a little while when we move you to C Pod. So she called Matt who had talked to Evan Ong right away (phone call went off in the elevator of the Space Needle - oops). Evan Ong had told him that he couldn’t see any cancer. There was nothing to biopsy. Nothing to find. Even in the space where he knew there was a tumor, he couldn’t see anything. Amazing right?

Well I’ve had a hard time getting to full-on celebratory mode around this. I am lucky. And as Evan Ong and Shanti Shrinivasharlu (my oncologist) told me, I am in a special category. (Dr. Srinivascharlu closed her eyes and I think said a prayer and then gave me a big, tight hug.) And yet, I’m still dealing with Stage IV colon cancer. So I’ll wait for a bit. My understanding is that this will never be over. And a friend helped me see that I am guarding myself against the emotional freefall she held space for me in when I was in hospital in January. Another friend, who has had cancer said, yeah, don’t get too excited yet. She gets it. It’s never over. Even in remission, it’s not over.

Another part that has been tough is the idea that the doctors may want me to do a full year of chemo. My understanding had been that I would do 12 cycles. That’s one every two weeks, which is just under 6 months. Which would mean I would have three left. That is “standard of care”. But I have realized that it’s standard of care for Stage III and II. That’s the staging that the studies I have read deal with. But Stage IV is different. I had a mini meltdown over the idea of doing another 12 cycles after this. The reasoning for doing more is that the chemo is working so well it makes sense to keep going to make sure it’s all gone. I worry about the other cancers that might come up because I’m poisoning my body with Grade A carcinogenics. So Shanthi and Evan (first name terms here) have both said to me to wait until after my hysterectomy before deciding what to do.

Oh yes, that’s the next piece. So I finish out these 12 cycles, and then I have a hysterectomy scheduled for September 7th. This is what’s called a Robotic Hysterectomy. I’m sorry Doctor Ong can you repeat that. I heard you say robotic and I don’t think that’s what I was supposed to hear. Yes it was. Robotic. He told me to look up DaVinci Robotics.

He and Dr. Shah see no point in me keeping my uterus. We know there had been cancer on my uterus, so let’s just get it out, they said. Fine, I said. Then Dr. Shah will get to have a good look around and see if he sees anything cancer-like growing. Then we’ll decide what to do from there. Shanthi seemed thrilled. The pelvis is his domain. He will be able to go through it inch by inch. This is great.

I am ridiculously excited about having a two week break from chemo before my surgery. We will be spending that weekend with friends. The first time we’ve taken a trip to see them in covid-forever. And I will be feeling better and be able to enjoy it.

And I’m also excited about my surgery. I actually daydream about it. I wonder if it’s because, since first feeling ill in January, most of my time in hospital has been under the care of lovely nurses who give me strong drugs and call me “Hun” and “Babes”. There may be an association forming. Bring on the hysterectomy!

Wishing you a blissful weekend full of connection and space and freedom. Whatever freedom means to you.