Turns out that it was a solo inquisition of the elderly
man next door who refused to keep on his oxygen mask. Then again…it turns out,
I’ve found myself answering this question a number of times and in a number of
different ways over the last year. I
suppose it’s a year and a bit since my surgeon told me I have Stage IV colon
cancer. Since they told me all how very sorry
they were, they are, or they will be…I suppose. A year and a bit since I found
out exactly how annoyed I get when I even hear the world incurable.
You see, I had been having stomach pain, but I had also recently
spent a year living in Mexico and a few weeks travelling through El Salvador. And since graduation from seminary, interviews
with churches, and ordination was on the horizon, it was the general consensus
that I was stressed (after all, the very first words of the ordination vows I
would be taking begin with the words, “Before Almighty God to whom you must
give account…!”) and/or I had picked up some kind of evil stomach bug from my
adventurous travels (maybe I really shouldn’t have shared that bottle of mezcal
with that hitchhiker in Oaxaca, hmmm).
Regardless, every doctor I saw asked me my age, and when
they realized I wasn’t in the “risk demographic,” they moved on to a diagnosis
that didn’t begin with a “can” and end with a “cer.” I couldn’t keep food down and I had nearly
constant stomach pain, but when I suggested the possibility of cancer to my
general practitioner, she rolled her eyes with great frustration, told me it
was NOT cancer, and also demanded that I stop googling my symptoms. Unfortunately, ordination and a new job
didn’t decrease my stress…or my stomach pain. A few weeks later I found myself
at immediate care in the middle of the night (driven there by the church
secretary, no less). Immediate care sent
me to the ER and the ER asked me my age…and diagnosed me with the stomach flu.
Well. Good then. Except that a week later…I was still throwing up.
Ultrasounds and CAT scans were now on the menu. I’d never
had a CAT scan, but I kind of found it fascinating…like an amusement park ride
at the end of which they tell you your future.
A very cheery young woman called me a few days later and informed me
they only saw some “swelling” in my colon and that a colonoscopy was ordered by
the aforementioned eye rolling/google controlling doctor. A colonoscopy. Sounded great. I signed up
right away, and on October 26, 2011 (less than three months after my
ordination), I had my first colonoscopy. Strangely, for this procedure they
didn’t give me quite enough of the good stuff. So I was pretty clear headed and
awake when “extra doctors” emerged from seemingly nowhere to observe and make
numerous acclamations of “oh yeah, yep….there it is.” Well, that didn’t sound
good. By the time they rolled me back and the doctor came to see me I was
prepared for not great news. A tumor the size of a grapefruit was almost completely
closing off my colon. Of course, there
was always a chance that it was benign, but “this is cancer,” the doctor
said. Talk about a shock. My dad was so
shocked he had to lie down on the bed next to mine! I can’t even imagine what must have been
going through his head—my poor dad who had to watch his father die from colon
cancer would now have to watch his daughter battle the same disease. I didn’t quite know how to react. So I threw
up in the bathroom. It seemed like an appropriate response.
A week later I found myself in the office of my new
surgeon, who was telling me not only that I did indeed have cancer, but that it
might also already be incurable. Oh, and he recited a laundry list of ways in which
I could cease living seemingly spontaneously, not to mention during the
surgery. He also informed me that he thought the tumor was the size of a mango.
Maybe a small papaya. I didn’t know what was going on with the fruit in my
abdomen, but I didn’t like it one bit. Not to mention I couldn’t eat for weeks
because nothing could get past the onslaught of fruit in my colon!
But eventually surgery was upon me. Three hours later I
had a foot less of my colon (I really thought those semi-colon jokes would have
gotten more mileage), 34 staples holding my stomach together, and a doctor who
was beginning the onslaughts of “I’m sorry’s” which seemed to be centered
around phrases like “metastatic” and “we left disease behind” and “Stage IV”
and “aggressive” and “three to six months.”
That last one wasn’t said to me; my family bore the burden of that
opinion. If chemo doesn’t work, how long? Three to six months.
So did I want to live? Yes I did! Yes I do. Because while
it’s true that I do have Stage IV cancer (and there is no Stage V)…I DO know
that there is a place beyond Stage IV, and that’s where I find myself today—567
days past diagnosis.
It’s where I find myself. It’s where I find my ministry.
And, sure enough, it’s where I find God too.
