One Man's Bad News is Another Man's Miracle

Wow! It's been such a long and difficult 48 hours. So much has happened...

In the last post I mentioned that the doctors determined that I definitely had cancer, adenocarcinoma to be exact. But the troubling question looming over everyone was where did it come from? Five different doctors stood over my bedside, each one saying something different. But the constant with all of them was the agonized look on each of their faces as if they had terrible news but were afraid to tell me. They all spoke in medical terms but it was their tone that told me everything. They spoke softly and kept asking if we had any questions. The one question we continued to ask, "Do you think its pancreatic cancer?" seemed to be the one question they tap danced around. No one would or could say definitively yes or no but I always felt as if they wanted to say, "yes, I think that's exactly what you have."

Steve and I cried most of the night. I, however, had to guzzle a prepping solution for my colonoscopy today. I finished the first 32 ounces of the solution within one hour as I was instructed. But all that liquid had me so bloated I felt as though I was going to rupture the sutures near my belly button. I will spare you all of the disgusting details but basically I was up all night trying to "cleanse" my colon. The second 32 ounces of the solution was a real bitch.

My colonoscopy got bumped to the afternoon to give my body every opportunity to be ready for the scope. Finally, around 2:30 in the afternoon, they took me down to the GI lab for my tests. When they woke me up, they finally had an answer for us...colon cancer. I was elated! I was relieved and I was grateful. This, I decided, was my golden opportunity because all I ever wanted was the chance to fight. With the colon cancer diagnosis, I have that opportunity.

I have been in the hospital now for a week and three days. Every five minutes or so I find myself in shock and disbelief thinking about how just two weeks ago I was running on the treadmill for an hour. And now I am faced with more surgery and lifesaving cancer treatment. How did this happen to me? I have always eaten right and exercised and I paid attention to my health, going to my yearly physicals, getting mammograms and pap smears. It just doesn't make any sense to me right now.

But for now I choose to live one moment and one miracle at a time. The GI people at the colonoscopy thought they were delivering the worst possible news to me today with the colon cancer diagnosis. But to my family and me, it was a miracle.

Love to you all.