Ten Months and Still Here! The Winter Tumor.

This past Saturday, March 24, marked ten months since the major surgery that revealed that I have gallbladder cancer. The diagnosis sounded like a death sentence . . . rare, incurable cancer . . . many folks live only two to six months post diagnosis . . . we don't know how your disease will progress . . . stage IV cancer, with "distant" metastasis . . . if you take this trip to the southwest you need to watch out for a recurrence of jaundice, for other evidence of spread of the disease and seek treatment immediately . . . yes, it would be a good idea to know where the closest hospital is as you travel . . .

Those were some of the conversations we had with my medical providers. Ultimately, they didn't tell us not to take the trip, and they didn't give us any compelling reasons why we should stay home. I couldn't begin chemo for at least a month following the surgery, so we were only potentially delaying beginning treatment by two weeks. Then, surprise! We returned from our trip, I had no signs of jaundice, was clearly recovering well from the surgery, and the CT scan showed no progression of disease. That was the beginning of what proved to be 8 months of being asymptomatic (except for that pesky spot in my abdomen that was removed surgically in December, and was an implant, grown from cells accidentally deposited as they removed my cancerous gallbladder).

And now I know, and know of, folks who are 18 month post diagnosis and doing well, and folks with even more time who continue to fight the cholangiocarcinoma, and to experience a good quality of life. As spring begins to stir here in Massachusetts, I find my desire to fight the disease is strengthened. Why not order those bulbs to plant in the yard in May and watch them bloom over the summer? Why not expect to be here in a year to watch yet another spring arrive? (Well, writing "expect" reminds me of the warning to have "abundant expectancy, but not expectations;" see my post of December 11) But why not have hope and imagination and faith in my body's ongoing ability to fight this disease?

Last summer when I was first diagnosed, my friend Bev was the one who said to me, tearfully, "You need another spring, you deserve another spring." This can't be happening, and the disease can't take you that fast, was the heart of her point. She and I both love to garden, and sharing our growing stories and cuttings and plants has been a special joy in our relationship. I knew what she meant. With the coming of this spring, I feel a renewal of that determination.

With the arrival of spring, I also feel I'm beginning to emerge from the "shell shock" of the sudden appearance of this dangerous tumor in my abdomen, visible in January's scan. I thought after 8 months that anything growing would be a little slower to be dangerous, yet this came on like gangbusters, threatening the functioning of vital organs, and, honestly, scaring me to death. It was a winter tumor, and it should vanish now that spring is here!

Something Leroy wrote in his blog before we left on vacation has really stuck with me, and seemed to articulate some of the changes I've experienced internally since the initial panic and anxiety about my life threatening diagnosis. On March 8, this is what Leroy had to say:

"I still stand by what I said earlier. I'm not ready to die. At the same time, when my cancer came at me again, I did finally come to peace with the process. After all, I feel that I have lived a decent life. But there is a big difference between coming to grips with your own death and giving up on life. I don't think any of us ever give up. Even when the time may come that we choose to end treatment, that's not giving up. That's making a choice."

"A big difference between coming to grips with your own death and giving up on life." Those were words I needed to hear last summer when I was dealing with the intensity of my diagnosis. So, I'm grateful to Leroy for saying the words I still needed to hear, for putting words on my experience. I feel that these last months have been about coming to grips with my own death, recognizing that it's likely to come sooner than I ever expected, while still not giving up on life. There's so much I want to do, and see, and write, and be, before my life comes to an end.

Let's hope that this winter tumor shrinks in the face of the chemo, and gives me even more time than I could have imagined last summer.