TMI: Colon Cancer

Reading your posts made me sad - knowing you and Sunny had to go through all this - but also happy for the fact that you seemed to have, in the end, beaten that cancer. I hope everything will be fine with you three from now on.

Sorry, Rock Hardy ~ through some personal encounters I've become a bit allergic to people blaming diet for all illness. Obviously what you eat has a huge effect on health though. A friend of mine tried to convince me that if my kids never ate processed food they'd never get colds. That "shut up" would be better directed at her.

PP I hear what you're saying about not getting swept into the maudlin tide. I'd also echo what someone upthread said about staying away from Internet advice. My sister has MS and when she was first diagnosed I got her a couple of books about the disease -- they were really depressing, scary books about how to deal with loss of mobility, loss of sex drive, loss, loss, loss. The next day I asked if the books were helpful or just scary and she said they were helpful because she made a decision not to live a life of loss. She threw the books away. She refuses to live her life as someone defined by disease. She has done just that - she's still got MS, but I almost always forget it, because she refuses to give in to the maudlin tide. She has changed her lifestyle to avoid stress and to reduce her risk of exacerbations. She is realistic about it, but figures we could all get hit by a bus tomorrow, so you just got to keep living. I admire that strength.

PP and Sunny, you're an inspiration.

Best of luck, Pleasant Plains: I hope I can deal with it as well as you have,, if/when they time comes.Anybody know any good information sources (personal, professional) on Parkinson's? A friend may have it (hard to diagnose sometimes, according to a book by a Mayo Clinic specialist; I'm hoping to hell it isn't *too* scary, cos I got it for my friend)

oh man, i am glad you are okay and your awesome little family is doing well
thanks so much for sharing - i read some of it yesterday night and was so stunned & amazed & moved that i really didn't know how to respond - others have said things i would also say - it's hard to respond online with my usual which wld be hugs and like tea and cookies and just hanging out celebrating life

xp
there is a book called "the case of the frozen addicts" that is a good introduction to the symptoms of parkinson's, research into the causes, and treatment research. it's a little out of date but a good read. sorry for the digression.

Keep your heads up, Beepsters.

Here's the wiki on virtual colonoscopy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_colonoscopy

Is that accurate, moonship journey to baja? Did they try to have you hold your breath for 10 minutes?

(also, my thesis was about endoscopic images and health information + intrinsic emotional/personal nature of these things - i don't mean to sound crass or pat or anything when i say this, but i really appreciate the medical/surgical details you go in to and the way you've written about them in a straight-up yet still emotionally attached way - it's important, tough stuff all the way through. so glad you wrote it.)
xposts

PP, sunny, beeps, it sounds like you guys are doing an incredible job of staying sane through a really hard time. I hope, very much, that you've seen the last of this cancer.

pp, sunny, beeps, i'm so sorry you've had to go through all this. one of my best friends has had hardcore chemotherapy in the past year as well (with good results also) so i have some limited insight into how grueling this has been. your courage and your love for each other is extremely moving.
i'm glad your doctor said this can just happen, there is so much, i believe, misplaced focus on what people ate/drank/smoked/thought that made them get cancer. at one stage after going through all her fairly normal diet history etc. my friend for a time even blamed her own personality, which i love, for getting sick. well-meaning people gave her superstitious books and tapes and advice that fundamentally blamed her for her illness (thereby giving everyone else a chance of controlling the uncontrollable so long as they followed whatever advice the author had concocted).
i have made peace with the idea that this could happen to any of us and i just hope that if it ever happens to me that i will deal with it as graciously and bravely as you have.
when i read this yesterday i could feel a deep reverent silence across ilx. i'm sure there are many people here who don't know how to respond but want to give you their love and best wishes. so, love and best wishes to you all.

there are many people here who don't know how to respond but want to give you their love and best wishes.

Hi dere.

Wow.

Bravery can be tossed about a bit too glibly (he didn't die in that car crash! what a brave man) but the way you and your family are handling this is textbook bravery. You all should be very proud.

there are many people here who don't know how to respond but want to give you their love and best wishes.

Hi dere.

-- en i see kay, Monday, March 17, 2008 7:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

when i read this yesterday i could feel a deep reverent silence across ilx. i'm sure there are many people here who don't know how to respond but want to give you their love and best wishes. so, love and best wishes to you all.

estela is right, as always.

Thank you all for the well-wishes. Dan, en i see, I'm about as good at responding to good thoughts as you are.

To wrap this up, I had my last treatment in late January. Laying in bed, the chemo pack would start beeping, saying it was "low". After an hour of that (worse than a snooze alarm), the pump would sound an alarm saying that it was dry. This meant that I could finally disconnect myself from the pump.

Well, actually, that was Sunny's job. My wife would flush out the needle and port with syringes filled with -- I don't know, Clorox? -- and then (here's the best part) grab the yellow plastic butterfly clip and squeeze. This dislodged and popped the needle out of my chest. Then she'd give me a band-aid.

After she did this for the last time (we hoped), we just kinda looked at each other. It was over. Even if a new test showed that cancer was still there, my oncologist said that he wouldn't begin treatment immediately. For now, we were safe and I could be her husband again.

But at that moment, I think I just passed out.

I got another PET scan done, where they pass me back and forth through this giant tunnel and take 3D pictures of my body from the inside (I had two of these done since I forgot and ate an Egg McMuffin before the first one.) A week later, we met with the oncologist.

The same nurse who always saw me was weighing me, taking my temperature, and registering my blood pressure. I asked her if she had seen my test results. She said yeaahhh, but also said that she could say anything about it. Sunny and I were both a little scared, psychoanalyzing every facet of the way she said "yeaahhh" for clues.

The doctor made it in and quite simply said "You're done". Was it all gone? There was nothing on the PET showing any positive signs of cancer. Even the weird heart thing that never got officially diagnosed as anything was gone. That was it. I shook his hand, he said something how he was glad to give good news for once, and we made another appointment for July.

So even though I'm "clear", I'm still under the watchful eye of the doctors. I'm going to have to get annual colonscopies probably for the rest of my life. I'll be checking in with the oncologist and getting periodic PET scans done for at least the next five years.

My doctor wanted me to keep my port in for another year, you know, as a precaution. I had seen on some cancer messageboards where crazy people left them in forever, as some sort of twisted red badge of courage. I talked to my insurance lady (who I haven't even mentioned here, but did call me every two weeks just to check in), and she said that they'd pay to have it reinstalled, if I needed it.

So last week, I got that fucker pulled out of me, by the same doctor who sliced up my colon. This time, I was awake during the process. They numbed me up good though. As he pulled and tugged on the port to get it out, it reminded me of the feeling you get when the dentist pulls a tooth out.

My dad, someone who can get a little emotional and melancholy about his 34-year old son (and grandbaby's daddy) having cancer, suggested that I got the port taken out "to put it all behind me now." He couldn't be farther from the truth. I've lost 20-25 pounds in the last six months, and that thing stuck out like a motherfucker. I'd tote Beeps around and she'd smack it like she was hoping for no whammies.

This thing is never going to be put behind me. Yeah, I have a lot better odds of it reoccurring than most people. That said, I'm getting it checked a lot more often too. But I'm fully aware that I could go through all of this again.

But beyond that, I've come out a different person from the whole experience. Cancer to me has always been like leporsy. I didn't know anyone who had had it (except for some very elderly grandparents), so I didn't know about the whole culture of it.

At any moment of the day, there are some sick people laying back in chairs with tubes running into their chest. They don't know if they're going to live or die. They don't know if they'll see the next season of their apricots ripening. They're trying on wigs and looking at their changing faces in the mirror. They see their tumors growing and bubbling out of their skull. I only saw mostly older folks, but there's a whole ward of children across the freeway at the children's hospital going through what I went through. And we're all covered by insurance in an industrialized nation. There's also patients sitting in folding chairs or on the ground, and more likely, not getting treatment at all.

That's why I don't feel brave. I had cancer, and I was lucky.

Publish this. Where, how, I don't know. But publish it.

That's all I'm saying. The rest you can guess.

tre: you are the only poster to make me laugh and cry in the same thread.

Whoah, I completely missed this. Wishing luck your way, PP.

aww, i am getting all misty reading the conclusion to this story. so happy for you guys! my dad went through a cancer bout and was lucky enough to come out clean after surgery alone (and has stayed clear for 2 years now!), but i remember how petrified he was (not to mention the rest of us) at one point when he thought he might have to go through radiation. even though he ended up being extremely lucky, he still turned into a sort of basket case. i always think 'brave' is really cheesy, too, but you really ARE brave and your behavior and the candidness of your writing really do make this story that much more incredible. ned's right... i'm sure tons of people would love to read this.

Dude,

I don't even know what to say, but thank you so much for posting this. And, if you're comfortable with it, listen to Ned and publish. It's really harrowing reading, but it's both touching and informative (as chaucer would say 'sentence and solace') and a really sterling bit of history.

being on both sides of the spectrum, it is totally better to have cancer than to have a loved one with cancer. PP, congrats on beating cancer dude.

^^^ this. ss deserves massive props.

I don't know exactly how to phrase this, since it's kind of an odd reaction, but.. thanks. Thank you for going to the doctor even when you thought you might be able to brush it off, for staying it out throughout the process, and for posting your whole story.

I've had two grandmothers die from cancer -- well, the second one's a hard call. I have a side of my family (farmers) who have the "you're either healthy and you stay home, or you're unable to walk and you go to the hospital" mentality. By the time my grandmother went to the hospital with her "stomachache" she was so cancer-ridden that I have no idea how bad it really was. And when she came out of anesthesia after the first operation, her mind was pretty much gone. She may have had alzheimers all along, but who knows? For lack of any serious medical treatment or tests for years, she really didn't have a chance.

I get angry when I see that one in three people die of cancer, because I wonder how many were like my grandma.

Just saw this and read the whole thread. Glad you're over the worst, PP. I turned 50 last year and haven't had a checkup for this yet, but I guess I will now. (Or at least start thinking about it.)

I cannot stress enough how easy the test was. The worst part was having to spend half a day in the bathroom, but I did get a lot of reading done. The procedure itself is painless and you never feel a thing.

it does make you shout out for mello yello in recovery though

Not a #1 burger with tots and a cherry limeade?

PP just waking up in rocovery.
Nurse: "We have Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Lemonade. What would you like?"
PP: "MELLO YELLO!!"
Nurse: "We dont have that"
PP: "Uhhh...Mello Yello!?!"

A man who knows what he wants!

It was like a Tony Soprano hospital room dream recalling the scene where Billy Bats gets whacked in Goodfellas, only he forgot (or the dream machinery displaced) the fact that the Donovan song featured in that sequence was "Atlantis."

This thread is very awesome by the way, I just wanted to chime in and echo and stuff. And PP, you've used the perfect voice to tell it.

For once, I don't know what to say PP, but I admire you and and truly wish you all the best.

Tre, were you able to, um, play the bass again?

You might want to telegraph a bit less there.

Telegraph

Just saw this thread, I'm way behind these days. You three are stellar, and that's no joke.

I for one am super glad that PP did not get an accidental new leg.

Apologies if this is incorrect humor, PP, but what was your first thought when "butthurt" entered the ILX lexicon?

Thank you for writing this, PP.

Ken - I just heard that song in Wendy's this afternoon!
Libcrypt - Had I received one, that would've meant that I now had four legs.
Rock - My butt never hurt, so that term just rolled off my back (so to speak.)
DP - Any time.

I'm also interested in publishing this only if Dan Lacey will illustrate it for me.

PP - I can only echo what has already been said by others, thank you so much for writing this and sharing your moving and important story.

I'm also interested in publishing this only if Dan Lacey will illustrate it for me.

That would be pretty damned cool.

PP, I haven't commented because I'm at a loss for words. You are so courageous (sp?) and so strong. I always feel as though I'm moaning about the little things - how the hell can a migraine attack be so bad, when you have cancer. I am extremely happy to see you three have come through it. YAY. :-)

Is the aversion to cold passing?

My fingers and toes are still numb and asleep. My typing isn't as good as it was. I'd probably be real good at snuffing candles with my thumb and forefinger, like a bad-ass Scout leader, right now.

Other than that, I'm bouncing back. Even had a hot fudge sundae this past weekend.

Ken - I just heard that song in Wendy's this afternoon!

full circle

virtual colonoscopies getting some run today

Hugs to both of you (and beeps).

Wow, I never knew about this til now. I hope you are doing well, PP!

For those still scared of colonoscopies, I had my first a couple of weeks ago. they gave me two shots of demerol + morphine and still couldnt get me under (usually takes one shot for most people). So I was conscious and chitty chatty through the whole thing. It wasnt bad at all. Going around the corners hurt like hell but that would be for a second only. Otherwise a very easy procedure.

For all the yayppisstillalive-ness this thread deservedly has, I feel I should also say WOW YAY at Suzy's still being alive and being the first child (!) to get such treatment.