Well, I haven’t written on this blog for almost 4 years, and yes, you can infer that I haven’t really been running during that time. It is always on my mind, and I really want to get back to running and racing. The COVID pandemic put a damper on racing, and now that *seems* to be getting back to normal. However, I ran into a little stumbling block recently: rectal cancer. I am 48 years old, and like many my age, I never thought I could get colorectal cancer. But it’s real, and it’s far too common in people under 50 these days. The recommended age for screening colonoscopy has been lowered from 50 to 45, so get your colonoscopy if you are over 45! The prep is what scared me the most, as probably with most people, but it’s really not that bad. My fear was the actual drinking part, not the aftermath. I have an aversion to drinking liquids that taste bad. In college I was prescribed a cough medicine and gagged every time it got near my mouth….I couldn’t drink it! But let me tell you, I have now done 3 colon preps in the last 3 months (Easter will be the fourth), and if I can do it, you can do it. I have no colorectal cancer history in my family. So get screened! *steps down from soapbox* For the immediate future, this blog is going to be my cancer journey (one I hope is short), and after that, I will get back to running.
The reason I am doing a colon prep on Easter is that the following day, I will have surgery to remove my rectum and sigmoid colon, and all of the adjoining lymph nodes. Don’t worry, everything is going to be hooked back up so I have working plumbing, but I will get the pleasure of having an ileostomy bag for 3 months while my colon heals. Then sometime late summer, if all goes well, I will have surgery to reverse the ileostomy and put me completely back together again. Probably not “good as new”, but some version of that.
I am a little different than the average patient, in that I have been a physician assistant for almost 20 years, and before that I was a surgical tech, working in surgery. I worked in the operating room a total of 10 years before moving on to my current position. I have seen the exact surgery I am going to have, I have assisted on the exact surgery that I am going to have. It is called a low anterior resection. I know the instruments, I know what will be happening to me during the surgery. It is slightly more terrifying than not knowing. I have the privilege of understanding everything the surgeon has told me, and can be an informed partner in my care. But ugh, those of you who work in surgery know what I’m talking about. It is so weird being in the patient’s position. Feels very vulnerable, especially for me since I am such a control freak. I have to have faith that the surgical team will do everything the way I would do it.
As far as staging, my cancer is thought to be a T1-2 (hasn’t invaded through the whole bowel wall), N0 (no lymph nodes containing cancer), and M0 (no metastasis, or spread of the cancer to other parts of my body). This is a great position to be in, because if the staging remains this way once the surgery is complete, I will not need chemo or radiation. That, of course, is the hope.
For now, my goal is to get through surgery, work on weight loss, and get back into running. If everything goes well, I could possibly do some 5k races in 2023!
Life in the Outside Lane 