22 May 2007

 

Going all the way

multipurpose toilet at Yōga Station #048 at Flickr.comThis is another post not for the squeamish, just so you know.

As my wife noted to me today, it's easy to get a bit blasé at the Cancer Agency—everyone there is dealing with cancer, and it almost seems normal. But today, after my final radiation treatment (yay!) and an excellent Mexican lunch with our friend Steven, I took a brief nap in his guest room and then walked to St. Paul's Hospital to meet with my surgeon, Dr. Brown. His news was not unexpected, but it wasn't the best case scenario either.

The upshot: when I have my tumour surgery in July, Dr. Brown recommends removing everything in my bowel from the bottom of my sigmoid colon on down, leaving with me no functioning rectum, and meaning that I will need a colostomy bag for the rest of my life. Yikes.

Now, I figured that might be the case, but it was still difficult to hear straight up. I can't argue with Dr. Brown's conclusion. He wants to eliminate every trace of cancer he can get at. All the tissue that was previously found to be cancerous, all the associated lymph nodes, and a buffer of extra tissue to ensure, as best as possible, that nothing malignant lingers.

I've read a little on the topic in case it came to this, and colostomies aren't nearly as nasty as you might think. Plenty of people have them, and those people swim, and do sports, and live their lives with hardly anyone knowing about it. And, to be frank, I'm not too fond of my rectum right now anyway. Ahem. I'll get used to my new body functions, as I have with my daily insulin needles over the past 16 years. But this reinforces that my cancer is a Big Deal. A Very Big Deal. This is what it takes to try to stop the cancer from killing me.

And it is a big step. The procedure will effectively move my anus up and onto the side of my abdomen, and the one I've been using since I was born almost 38 years ago will be sewn up, gone. That is just weird.

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Comments:

Derek wrote: "And, to be frank, I'm not too fond of my rectum right now anyway. Ahem."

I love how, in the middle of a shockingly sobering post, you manage to make me laugh out loud.

You have an awesome attitude, Derek.

Wishing you nothing but the best,
b
 
Wow... good for you for having such a positive attitude. Whatever it takes to get rid of the cancer!

Besides, think of all the fun you'll have making cool new fart noises with your new hole! :-)
 
Wow... like a masectomy, but with issues of functionality left over, not just cosmetic/balance things... interesting!

A rectum-less life is still life, though, and good to hear that it won't slow you down much... I can understand it taking some getting used to, of course, but I bet you will adapt easily enough, and prob wind up with an arsenal (ha!) of colostotomy bag jokes :) (that will undoubtably be referenced on a future CBC appearance, of course..)
 
Yes Derek..... there will be a number of fart bag jokes floating around "The Neurotics" camp in the near future. I remember when my Uncle got his c. bag 25 years ago. He's still going strong.

Take care,
Dilly
 
That's a lot of bags in 25 years!