Woof. So, you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit MIA recently and that’s because I got some shitty news and I didn’t want to share until I had more information because I know you guys worry as much as I do, and also because I didn’t want to tell Hailey until they were done with finals and back home.
This is a longish story but I’ll try to make it shorter. So, I’ve been having problems with my blood (it’s such an asshole) and my doctor was like, “Let’s send you in for an endoscopy just to see what’s going on because your bloodwork is making me think you have another autoimmune disorder (I COLLECT THEM NOW) that’s affecting your stomach.” And I went in and it was fine except that I saw “intestinal metaplasia” on the paperwork and googled it up and got a little panicky because apparently that’s a precancerous thing where your stomach turns into an intestine (or something?) and that sounds bad, but I guess I didn’t need to worry about it being precancerous because for some reason the lab emailed me copies of the endoscopy report and turns out my body decided to be an overachiever and skipped right over “pre-cancer” and directly into cancer. Bleh.
And then I panicked because I was reading this super-academic biopsy email with terrifying words that I half-understood and so I texted my doctor: “Someone sent me my endoscopy results and I think I have cancer?”
They always say that you’re never prepared for the day when your doctor tells you that you have cancer, but I think you’re even less prepared for the day when you have to tell your doctor that you have cancer. Thankfully he called me right away and explained that yes, I did have cancer, but that if he had to choose a cancer to get this one would be in his top 10, which is weird that he has them ranked, but I guess slightly comforting.
It’s a very rare kind of cancer (BECAUSE OF FUCKING COURSE IT IS) and it’s in my stomach but it’s not stomach cancer, which is just confusing. Apparently I have neuroendocrine tumors, a type of cancer that can show up anywhere in your endocrine system (which is sort of all over?) I’m sorry. I’m not good at biology. But the good thing is that the tumors are incredibly “small and indolent”. When the doctor first told me that I thought he said the tumors were “indigent” but he clarified that they were “indolent” which is science-speak for “lazy” and I guess it’s nice that they match the rest of me.
There’s lots of different types of treatment because there are lots of different stages and such, but it’s very possible that these might just sit lazily in my stomach for years and years and do nothing except make me fatigued (which I already deal with). It’s a sort of cancer where sometimes chemo and surgery are used but (best case scenario) you can sometimes just have this cancer for 40 years and it never grows bigger. So now I’m waiting for CT scans and PET scans and all that jazz to make sure that it’s not in other places, but my bloodwork isn’t screaming, “HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?” so the doctors feel cautiously optimistic that I could definitely be one of the lucky people who just gets endoscopies every 6 months for the rest of my life to make sure that the cancer is being as lazy as the rest of me. I’m not sure if “cancer forever” is considered “lucky” but it’s not the worst thing I could think of.
I’m trying to make this a positive thing so I’m making myself say yes to things more. Life is short. I’m also using this to get out of anything I just don’t want to do. Things I haven’t been able to do in the last week: Clean the toilet. Take the dog out to pee after I already took off my bra. Not buy new sandals when they were on sale.
Honestly, I’ve been using it every day. “Victor, I can’t possibly wear these old shoes. I have cancer.” And this seems terrible except that cancer is terrible too and I’m not about to let it be the first terrible thing I’ve dealt with to turn me into a serious person. As with the many terrible things that I have dealt with, I will use dark humor and laughter to make it more manageable and I would ask that you don’t treat me any differently than you already do.
I was really worried that Victor was going to treat me differently because he was really freaked out the first week, but when I told him that the tests showed I had two tumors instead of one he was like, “That doesn’t surprise me. It’s called a ‘two-mer’…not a ‘one-mer’.” And that’s when I realized we were going to be fine.
Victor took a picture of me during one of my exams where I was doing heavy-metal devil horns but it looked ridiculous even for me so instead here’s one of me laughing right after he said something ridiculous.
I have more to share but this is too long and I’m tired so I’ll just say that there is more to come and everything is going to be fine no matter what.
I super crazy love you. Thank you for listening, friend.
