You are never really quite prepared for a cancer diagnosis. I certainly wasn’t. Yet, there I was on February 16, 2024, on the table at the end of what I expected was a routine “you’re getting old so it’s time” colonoscopy and that word was thrown into my universe and my universe was thrown upside down.

Here in Ontario, the health department sends out fecal immunochemical test (FIT) kits every 2 or 3 years once you turn 50. It’s not what I’d call “fun”, but it’s a very simple process to get a stool sample and send it off to the lab.

This time it came back with an “abnormality” and I got a call from a colonoscopy clinic to schedule that procedure.

The next day I got a call from my doctor to let me know that it was normal, nothing to worry about.

“It happens fairly often that blood comes back,” he said, “but it’s usually just something somebody ate. I’m not worried about it and don’t want you to be, either. However,” he continued, “if something does come back, then we are catching it and able to treat it early.”

I really wasn’t worried. Not at all. Well, not about the result. I had heard horror stories about the process to get ready for a colonoscopy so I wasn’t what you could call looking forward to that part of it, but I wasn’t at all worried that the result would be bad. Not like the mammogram scare I had had last fall.

That had also been another routine test. I do them dutifully (again another after-50 test encouraged by the health department) and never have a problem. I did it in October after I got back from a trip to Newfoundland. But this time it came back with an abnormality. Barely two days after the mammogram I got a call saying that I needed to schedule another one plus an ultrasound. THAT put me into a bit of a spin, I have to say.

Breast cancer is in Dad’s side of the family. Two of his sisters had it. Not till their late 70s or early 80s, but still it was there. It was pretty stressful. I was super relieved when I saw the doctor after the results came back and found out it was just a benign cyst – nothing to worry about. But it was a long few weeks between finding out there was an abnormality, doing the new tests, and getting the results. Once I got them, I was totally fine.

But there’s no history of colorectal cancer in our family that I am aware of so I had zero concerns about the FIT result abnormality. I fully expected the colonoscopy prep to be the worst part of this experience.

At the clinic, the anesthesiologist explained that while I would only be sedated, as opposed to being under general anesthesia, I wouldn’t be aware of most of the procedure. Towards the end of the procedure, she would bring out of the sedation and I would be aware of what was happening, which would be normal. I don’t remember going to sleep, but I do remember waking up.

There on the screen in front of me was the inside of my colon. The doctor doing the procedure explained what we were looking at as the camera wound around some of the curves. I was amazed at how clean it was in there! All the bother of the few days before had definitely paid off! 😀

Then he backed the camera up and stopped it so that this bumpy, blobby looking thing was on the right-hand side of the screen. I knew that sometimes they find polyps when they do the procedure, and they cut them out when they do. I thought they were smoother bumps, not like this, but still I expected him to say that’s what this was.

But he didn’t. He said, “And this is cancer.”

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I remember the anesthesiologist gently and kindly squeezing my arm when he said it. I then thought, thankfully, “You need to focus now and pay attention to what he’s saying. You can worry about it later.”

Weirdly, because I’m curious about, apparently, everything, I also thought, “I wonder if I could get a still shot of the tumour?” I know. Weird. But I still wish I had asked. I was a bit groggy from the sedation and didn’t have my glasses on so I didn’t have a full, clear view of it. And I would like know more about this thing that’s been growing inside of me – to give it a face, so to speak. In any event, I didn’t ask.

I got dressed and once they cleared me from the sedation I met the doctor in his office. A friend of mine had brought me to the appointment (because you aren’t allowed to drive yourself home afterwards) and the nurse asked if I wanted them to ask her to come in for the conversation with the doctor and I said yes. I knew from things I had read about patient advocacy that it’s always a good idea to have someone with you when you are at a serious appointment. I wasn’t expecting that day to have a serious appointment, but there we were.

Carol came in and looked a bit confused. “Is everything OK?” she asked.

I pointed to a chair and asked her to sit down. “I have cancer,” I said.

Her eyes widened in likely the same disbelief that I was feeling. “The doctor will be in shortly to talk about it. I need you to listen to help make sure I don’t miss anything important that he says.”

He said that I would likely need some combination of surgery, chemo and radiation – possibly all three. It will depend on if it had metastacized (spread) or not. He was going to schedule a CT scan and an MRI. He also gave me a requisition for blood work that needed to get done. He explained that he had taken some tissue samples for biopsies and those would confirm 100% if it was cancer. From his experience and how it looked, he was about 98% sure it was. If the tests showed it hadn’t metastacized, he explained that it was very likely it could be cured. If it had spread, then it would depend on a bunch of things. The results of the tests would help determine the approach to take.

That was February 16. We are now at April 21. A lot has happened in the interim, but it’s too much to put in one post. I plan on doing a series on this. I had intended to start on it sooner, but, as you can probably imagine, there’s been a lot going on!

That said, I think it will be helpful for me and hopefully helpful for you if to continue to do this. We all go through health trials differently – life trials, for that matter – but it can still be helpful to learn from each other, how we each cope with these challenges that come our way.

On that note, stay tuned for more on this unexpected journey!

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