Surgery down. SRN up.
Part 2: Stage 3 cancer, chemotherapy, and life
You can’t ever prepare for cancer, no matter how much warning you’ve been given. Instead, the best you can do is adapt to your new normals and make the best of them. A month ago, I went into surgery for what turned out to be stage 3 colon cancer. During my multi-hour operation via laparoscopic incisions, I had a piece of my colon cut and put back together. While from the outside it doesn’t look like much, the operation was major, one that destroyed any core strength I had, rendering me unable to even put on my own socks a week after it. Yet four weeks later, here I am, taking walks over a mile long with my wife and doing very light weight¹ workouts. Is it the 140lb bench press I was nearly at prior to this saga which began in October of 2018? No, but it’s my new normal and even that can change.
Make no mistake, cancer sucks, but that doesn’t mean we/you are not strong enough to overcome it. Nearly a week ago, a mile walk with some light hills turned into me not feeling well which led to a fever and a three night stay at the hospital because of an unknown infection that had sprung up inside of me. Again, a new normal — lots of hospital visits, blood work, and IVs which I take zero pleasure in, nor am I good at. Yet once again, here I am having just come back from a three day trip in San Diego that allowed me to get away from it all for just a brief period of time. Yes my new normal is suddenly going to the hospital from Saturday through Tuesday, followed by a visit to a genetics counselor² on Wednesday and oncologist on Thursday, only to be gone Friday-Sunday and come back to more blood panels on Monday, but that doesn’t mean my new normal is my always normal.
One thing that’s became crystal clear to me during these past few months is the strength of family and community. Without my amazing wife, mom(s) and dads(s)³, sister(s), and extended family, there’s no way my recovery would be what it is today. Without their strength and support, there’s no way I would be keeping up with my ever so important nutrition for what’s to come, or my sanity for that matter. Without the support of my extended family and community, there’s no way I’d be waking up to new messages of support and encouragement from people I’ve never met which often gives me that extra boost to push through the day and yet that’s my new normal, someone who, through cancer, is more connected to the people around him.
You see, my new normal isn’t taking a crazy vitamin and antibiotic regimen but rather, it’s being more connected to my loved ones. My new normal is being eager to get back into the gym and start rebuilding my body from the beginning. My new normal is knowing that, when my wife calls me excitedly from the other room so she can show off something new she’s done for her Etsy store, there’s nothing more important that I’m doing to say I’ll be there in a few and have it turn into 15 minutes later.
On February 14th, while people around the world will be celebrating love which in essence is life, I’ll be celebrating it in a different way — by starting 6 months of chemotherapy that, once completed, will give me the best chance at life. I’m not going to beat around it, it won’t be easy and no matter how much I know about it, I can’t truly prepare for it or its many side effects, yet that will be my new normal for that period. From there, the choice is mine to accept it for what it is, but allow it to define me and ensure my 2019 is merely the year I had cancer, or that I define it and push ahead with the things I want to achieve and have it be a year of accomplishments that also includes beating cancer.
I choose the latter.
While I’m not in the slightest a religious person, I choose to accept with open arms a prayer quilt created by family friends. A prayer quilt that represents an entire congregation’s worth of love and support.
I choose to accept and connect with family members I’ve exchanged few words with for over a decade and hear stories of similar tragedies and triumphs via tweets, DMs, and comments from readers not only because it supports me in this time, but also because I want my new normal to be a warmer, kinder human being.
Normal is a human construct which means we can decide what it is and what it’s not. It’s a construct that’s not set in stone and is instead fluid. My new normal might be 6 months of chemotherapy that’s surely going to have days where I feel like utter crap, but my new normal can also be a more loving person towards myself and the world. My new normal can either be a person who thinks he’s sick and therefore acts sick and doesn’t try to write again, or my new normal can embrace the road ahead and say, why shouldn’t I write for SRN daily as I did before?
It’s taken me a decade to get this website to the point where it is: it’s unique, hopefully informative, and all me. Previously, I had played with the idea of building a team of writers in hopes of taking on IGN and Engadget while other times I approached each article as if I was the only one reporting on it and in turn, regurgitating every single piece of information that was also on every other website. But eventually, I discovered my voice and why I was writing. Sometimes, my takes are merely there to point you to other great articles by different authors on various sites and other times, it’s taking a seemingly small piece of information and expanding on it with my own unique perspective. It’s not that my previous approach was wrong and my new approach is right, but that my new approach allows me to better lend my voice and insights to the topics at hand, so with cancer knocking on my door, do I really want to give up a decade’s worth of work?
If you’ve made it this far, hopefully the answer is abundantly clear. I might not be able to attend events like E3 2019 since chemo compromises my immune system, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be writing about it. And sure, chemo might weaken me the day after infusion but that doesn’t mean I can’t write the day before and the day before that. Now I might not be able to produce the same quantity of work as I did before this entire saga began but it’s up to me to accept a new normal where the blog I’ve been working on dies because of cancer — or that the blog I’ve been working on continues forward, hopefully better than ever, with a slightly different pace.
What I’ve learned more than anything during this journey is that everything for the better is temporary. Pain is temporary, if I allow it to be, as is this cancer. I don’t know if the cancer will ever come back or not, but what I do know is that 6 months in the grand scheme of my life is temporary and not worth being defined by. What I do know is that life itself is temporary, so is it worth being mad at our loved ones over trivial matters? Is it worth fighting online about why someone likes a game or dislikes your OS of choice? Is it truly worth taking the time to inject a negative remark on a Facebook post or a snarky comment on Instagram?
I think not.
None of this means we shouldn’t speak out or stand for what we believe in but seeing how a tweet won’t change someone’s mind about something, unless constructive, why not take that same time and instead put out something positive? Why not invest in yourself and improve your own photography and editing skills, instead of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram for hours on end and envying other people’s work? Why not, instead of investing in who others ought to love, reach out to the people you love like a friend, a family member, or an old fling?
As obvious as it might be, it’s truly worth letting it sink in that life is temporary and so it is up to us to construct what is normal about it. Make that normal the best it can be. Make that normal positive and impactful. Make that normal mindful of what’s to come while living in the moment.
My new normal might involve 6 months of chemo, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be having fewer date nights with my amazing wife or spending less time with my family. My new normal might mean more sick days but that doesn’t mean I plan on giving up expressing myself physically through the gym or mentally through my writing on SRN. My new normal is what I choose to make of it and I refuse for it to mean cancer.
¹ We’re talking with 2lb weights
² More bloodwork
³ I’m really not into the whole mother- and father-in-law thing. To me, they’re mom and dad.
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