Cancer Free Today

I’m not going to bury the lead here: as of this post, I am cancer free.

That is a hell of a thing to be able to say.

I actually started writing this on Friday with the best of intentions, but thankfully the pain meds stepped in and saved the internet from what was shaping up to be less a blog post and more a madman’s manifesto. I tried again on Saturday. That version was mostly just a chronological list of the day’s indignities—ranging from soiling myself while laying in a hospital bed wearing medical underwear (which I did not know existed, nor that I was wearing them until that moment), to arguing with nurses who were trying to follow prescriptive diabetes orders that I knew—deeply and confidently—were going to kill me unless they ignored them.

By Sunday, the post had evolved into a detailed inventory of the various medical-looking atrocities protruding from my body: a catheter, a drainage tube, and what felt like eleven IV ports. Somewhere in there it also dawned on me that I had, at that moment, three sizable holes in my body as a direct result of surgery I had just endured. At that point, I decided it was probably best to hold off on posting any of that. I’ll still tell the story—but I’ll tone it down here so I don’t gross everyone out too badly.

Here’s the short, less-horrifying synopsis.

They removed the last two feet of my large intestine, then sewed what remained together. I have no idea what that means long term, but I’m cancer free, so I’ll deal with it. They also reversed the bag—but had to put in a new one, higher up in the intestinal tract, to give everything time to heal without risking infection. This was expected, but it’s a whole new challenge. This bag is connected to the small intestine, which means everything is liquid, much more frequent, and—oddly—nearly odorless. I genuinely can’t tell yet if that’s good or bad. Either way, it’s temporary. Two months. I can manage that.

I now also have a hole where the old bag was. They used a technique meant to minimize scarring, which currently makes it look like I took a bullet to the abdomen. I mentioned the drainage tube earlier, and if you’ve never had the pleasure of having a three-foot tube pulled out of your insides, I would strongly recommend keeping it that way. That’s one of those memories that lodges itself deep in your brain and refuses to leave.

I’m home now. The pain is real—mostly from having to sit up and get out of bed—but I’m managing it largely medication free. I was warned to watch for certain risks, and I don’t want to dull pain that might actually be trying to tell me something important. All in all, it’s not too bad. Just a long road to recovery ahead.

The most surprising part of all of this didn’t really hit me until I was driving home from the hospital. It was a simple question: what now?

That question had floated through my head a few times while I lay in a brutally uncomfortable hospital bed, wrapped in a gown that made me feel far more exposed than anyone should ever feel, and it followed me all the way home. There’s a moment in Fight Club—which I think I’ve referenced before—where Brad Pitt’s character drags a convenience store clerk into an alley at gunpoint and interrogates him about why he’s let his life stall out instead of pursuing his dreams. Pitt lets him go and explains to Edward Norton that the clerk will wake up tomorrow with an appreciation for life neither of them will ever truly understand, because of the second chance he was just given.

My circumstances aren’t quite that dramatic, but the feeling is familiar. And it keeps circling back to that same question: what now?

The honest answer is that I don’t know.

I believe God doesn’t give you hardships to punish you, or worse—but to grow you. You don’t get stronger, braver, or wiser during the easy seasons, so it stands to reason that something comes next. What that is, I have no idea. I’m pretty dense when it comes to hearing clear answers from God—but I’m fairly confident it’s something good. For now, I’m leaving the question open-ended and seeing what life throws at me next.

What I do notice is a new sense of opportunity—and a quiet resolve not to squander it on things I wouldn’t be able to explain to myself a year from now.

For now, I’m going to fall asleep on the couch, listening to Tugboat snore happily in his little bed, and try not to cry for the twentieth time in the last few days as it sinks in, again, that I am cancer free.

What a hell of a year it has been.