Where I'm at now...

I'll get back to the other parts of my journey getting here later but right now, I'm focusing on the present. Not the past. Not the future. Just today. Though I do need to give you a brief intro before discussing today...

Last year, after my diagnosis, I completed chemoradiation followed by 8 (2-week) cycles of chemo. On March 13, 2023, I found out that those treatments together had made my tumor go away and I was able to hold on surgery and watch and wait. If it came back, I went straight to surgery. In July, I had a flexsig (think mini-colonoscopy that you are awake for) and had no sign of the tumor coming back.

Fast forward to September. I had a chest/abdominal CT and they found a 1 cm nodule in my lower left lung. about a week and a half later, I had a lung biopsy and the results confirmed that the nodule was a tumor with markers that showed that it was directly related to my original tumor and that my cancer had spread to my lung. 

Last week I talked to my oncologist about the plan and today I have another flexsig to check on the original tumor site to make sure that the original tumor is still gone. If it is gone, I have 3 months of chemo, followed by lung surgery, a short recovery, and finally another 3 months of chemo. If the original tumor is back, I also have rectal surgery. 

In this moment, right now, I'm okay with this. I'm not looking forward to it. I wish it wasn't the case. But I'm ok with where I'm at and what has to happen next. I can do this. I can get through chemo. I can get through the surgery and recovery. I don't want to have to do this but I've got this.

 If you're reading this and in a similar situation or have a family member in a similar situation and you are feeling very differently about your situation, try not to compare our situations. Everyone is different and processes things differently. To get to where I'm at now, I've been going to therapy for over a year now, I've been on antidepressants for years, and while today I feel ok and ready, tomorrow I may feel differently. And that's ok.

There is a level of grief that comes with a cancer diagnosis. Last year, with the original diagnosis, it was so much harder. This time around, I have done even more research and my chemo meds will be the same as last time so I know what to expect there. I've mentally planned for different alternatives and that makes me feel better. I know that research and planning help me cope so that's what I do. 

It's still hard and I still go into different stages of grief and have woe is me days but for right in this moment today, I've got this. 

Back to the beginning...

In July 18, 2022, I went to see a GI doctor for symptoms that were concerning me. Apologies for TMI here but I've had so many people ask what symptoms I had and I realized that they just want to know what to look for themselves. While you can have a variety of symptoms, I had blood and mucus when I had a bowel movement and pain in my right side. While I have had IBS symptoms in the past and hemorroids in the past, I generally did not have these symptoms together, and the pain was within the past year. A symptom I completely overlooked because I had been teaching PreK that year was fatigue. I thought I was just tired because of how much energy it takes to be active in the classroom but I did notice that the fatigue never got better over the summer even after I was only at home with my kids.

If you are looking for yourself, consider any significant and long-term change in your bowel habits to be important and worth going to the doctor to get checked out. About 3 - 4 years prior I had gone to a GI doctor for diarrhea that was at least once daily for over a month. I went through bloodwork and sending stool samples but when the doctor suggested I try an elimination diet and that resolved the symptoms, we never took it any further. I wonder now if that was the start of when the tumor was forming or when it turned malignant. So, if you think something is important, talk to your doctor. Colorectal cancer is affecting younger and younger patients.

Back to July 2022. My GI doctor wanted me to get a colonoscopy as soon as possible and when an appointment opened up for a week later on Monday 7/25/22, I took it. I didn't know that the results of the colonoscopy would forever change my life. I didn't get any answers about the pain in my side at that time, but I did find out that I had a rectal tumor and that it was significant and ugly and likely malignant and that I needed to call Roswell the next day. 4 days later on Friday, 7/29/22, 2 days after my 42nd birthday, I received confirmation that the tumor was, in fact, malignant.

Things happened pretty fast at this point. The following Tuesday I received a call from Roswell with appointments booked for a CT Scan and an MRI for that Friday (1 week from confirmation that the tumor was malignant). I also went and got bloodwork. The following Monday, I met with the Dr. Dakwar, a colon and rectal surgeon. At this point, I was informed that the tumor was significant and for staging was T3bN2. While it hadn't completely gone through the rectal wall, it was very deep into it and I had 4 lymph nodes involved. This is considered stage 3 rectal cancer or locally advanced rectal cancer.

3 days later (Thursday), I met with Dr. Vadehra (oncologist) and Dr. Mattson (radiation medicine) to discuss chemotherapy and radiation. Between meeting with the 3 doctors, I now had a good understanding what the plan was and what it hoped to accomplish. I knew I would have 25 days of radiation therapy while taking capecitabine, a chemotherapy drug, on radiation days. This would be followed by a short break of about a month during which I would get a mediport placed for my chemotherapy infusions. Then I would have 6-8 two-week cycles of chemotherapy. Finally, any tumor that remained would be removed surgically.

And that's how it all began...