It’s two hours before I head to MD Anderson to find out how well—or how poorly—I responded to chemo and radiation over the last year, and what the next, and hopefully final, steps of this whole thing will be.
It’s another one of those seminal moments, not unlike the first time I came here early last year. I don’t know if it’s irony, symmetry, or something else entirely, but I’m sitting in the exact same hotel room where this all started. Staring out at the same signage I stared at then. I’m sure my woo-woo friends will someday have plenty to say about that. For now, it just is.
In a bit, I’ll shower, then walk down Holcombe Boulevard, turn into that little alleyway that cuts between two medical buildings—the one with copper stains streaking down the walls from the steam vents that hiss constantly in a way I’ve somehow come to love—pass the Starbucks where the security guard DJ and I have become friends, and enter the back side of the main MD Anderson campus. Again.
It’ll be my 100th time walking into the hosptal. I know because I’ve been counting for some reason. More irony or symmetry for people to read into later.
I didn’t write at all the last two days, even though I got to Houston on Monday. Not much happened, really. CT scans, MRIs, and other invasive-but-necessary scans to tee things up for today. Yesterday was simple. Easy, uncomfortable, sure, but easy.
What has been keeping me at easy is the amount of outreach, concern, and prayer from so many people. Most messages assume I’m scared, not sleeping, not eating, and generally a distressed wreck. I assumed the same thing about myself. But since getting here, it’s been the opposite. I’ve eaten like a fat kid, slept well, and felt completely calm.
Yesterday afternoon I sat in a coffee shop reading after leaving the hospital, then ended up meeting some random new friends at a BBQ place who were in town for their very first MD Anderson consultation. We talked, ate, and prayed together. It was one of those moments that happens only because I talk too much to strangers—whether it’s an elderly couple in an elevator going to see their grandson before surgery, or a young mom and her mom standing in line at a BBQ joint, trying Texas barbecue for the first time before her husband learns about his pancreatic cancer treatment options the next morning.
I think God gave me this calm not just for me, but so I could offer it to other people. That might sound arrogant, but it’s something I’ve noticed the last couple days: people seem to gravitate toward my outlook this time around more than before. And that actually makes all of this easier, because I’ve always felt better when I can help someone else, even in the smallest way.
It might be hard to believe that I’m not scared this morning, but walking to get coffee earlier this morning, I realized why. Beyond all the love and support from everyone in my life, my mom gave me the blueprint for how to handle all this shit—last colon cancer pun ever, I promise—when she went through it with my dad forty years ago. Watching a mother of four navigate something harder, with fewer resources, makes what I’m doing now feel surprisingly manageable by comparison.
So today, I’ll walk into these appointments feeling more excited than anything else.
I’ll update this blog again this evening after I get my results. Radiation oncologist at 11. Surgeon—probably the most important meeting—at 1:30. Chemo doctor shortly after that. Then I’ll climb into that great self-driving car GM gave me, point it toward home, stop at Whataburger for a big-ass Diet Coke, and listen to an audiobook.
I’m really looking forward to that part.
See you on the other side.