cancer – wandering chardonnay

It’s weird what you don’t know until you need to know. I considered myself pretty healthy and active prior to my diagnosis. I’m dealing with it. (side note that used to be the name of my very first blog) How am I dealing with it? They (the docs) have me on “targeted drugs”. It’s primarily a chemo pill that I take everyday at home. Plus a reflux drug and an alphabet of vitamins. Yes there are side effects; like stomach upset, vomiting, muscle pain, skin changes, memory issues and feeling generally tired.

It’s not the chemo everyone knows. So I tend to get treated as fragile by my family (as they saw me at my worst) unresponsive in the hospital. Then others who haven’t seen me for months think “hey she looks fine”. The scars are mostly hidden and the turmoil is on the inside. I’m not fragile but I’m not ok. That’s easier to write than to say out loud.

Learning to live with a cancer diagnosis has been difficult and very stressful. But you guessed that. The change in my cognitive/physical abilities has caused significant distress. I become overwhelmed, at times, with multiple tasks, distractions. Just leaving the house for a social occasion leads to stress. I’m used to hiding that though. The muscle soreness and hip pain really blows as you may have heard I like to walk. My long walk plans for the fall will be different than before and are maybe contingent on what the doc says.

But hey I don’t think that will stop me. I’ve beat death! Oh right I haven’t told you about that. I did. Not ready to talk about that yet though. Not totally sure why I am sharing all this, I’m not usually this “sharing”. But hey the game has changed, for me anyway.

Luckily I’ve found groups for information/support like LRG (Life Raft Group) and Gist International. My good friend sent me a book called Chris Beats Cancer, with great healthy living information. These sources have given me a plethora of information I was unaware of.

For now I’m dealing with the hard changes. The muscle soreness and hip pain hopefully will go away since it makes walking long distances difficult. But it’s also hard not to worry about cancer coming back.

That reminds me, symptoms of cancer are not always obvious. I did not see this coming and it blew my life up. If you are not feeling well go see your doctor. Check your health insurance, run all the tests, eat something healthy, reduce your stress…. because this sucks.

In December of 2020 I was diagnosed with Gist cancer. And just like that everything changed. It has tested my lifestyle, relationships, and patience. It’s a big deal that I am trying to pretend is not a big deal.

Wait, what is GIST you ask? A GIST (pronounced “jist”) is an uncommon type of cancer that starts in the digestive tract. Gist is rare and it’s not clear what causes it.

How the heck did that happen or How did I find out about it?

Well now basically it went like this….I was tired, like super tired and I had a loss of appetite, that’s it. It was like a really bad cold, without the cold parts. I laid around for over a week barely getting out of bed. Turns out some people with GISTs feel tired because they’ve lost blood from the tumor. Being that this was the era of Covid I went to the hospital for a test. The ridiculous part of that was that I drove myself (15 miles) even though I could barely walk to the car. Hindsight being 20/20 that was not smart, especially since I promptly passed out in the parking lot as soon as I arrived. But on the upside it was the hospital parking lot. I can’t say enough good things about Tahoe Forest Hospital. They quickly determined it was not Covid but I was losing blood and needed blood and a host of tests!

Since no one knew what was going on I had an upper endoscopy AND a colonoscopy. Samples were taken from the abnormal area for a biopsy.

Waiting for the results wasn’t as bad as hearing the results. I’ll never forget sitting on my bed when the doctor called, all I heard was cancer……blah, blah, blah.

It turned out to be a resectable tumor (one that could be removed safely with surgery)…it was recommended I do it soon…so I had surgery January 11, 2020.

Woah, that was huh? I know right. Pretty much most of December, January and half of February was a blur. Jason was a sweetheart, dropped everything and drove my whiney butt across the country to Michigan; immediately following the

diagnosis. I had to be near my family and Karmanos Cancer Center got me in lickitty split. Things went sideways in my 2nd surgery. I can’t really get into that right now, but I was in the hospital for a month, that sucked. Full disclosure: I don’t remember most of it. Actually I don’t remember much at all from the end of December to February. Seriously nothing and yes it is way weird.

My simple surgery got complicated. The tumor was sizable and to get it all they had to slice me open and take part of my tummy too. So I’m all better now. Ok not really. I have a host of issues, physical and mental.

This is not a path I saw me going down, basically I’m bushwhacking at this point.It’s been emotionally stressing (it can be when the rug is pulled from underneath you). While everything is up in the air I am scrambling to take care of my mind and body. Dealing with it…….changes.