So probably everyone realizes Cancer is a big deal. If you don't let me tell you from experience, it's a big deal. It's easy for cancer to become the 'elephant in the room', but one of the reasons I decided to write about it in this blog was to at least reduce the size of the elephant. I really have no problem talking about it, if you have a question and I know the answer, it's yours. Beware though, I'm am not a believer in the, "there are no dumb questions," paradigm. Yes, there are dumb questions, some really dumb questions. "Does having cancer suck?" Yes, dumb question. "Are you going to die?" Yes, we are all going to die at some point, dumb question. "Is Chemotherapy fun?" Yeah, I kind of like feeling like poop for days on end...No Chemo is not fun, dumb question. "Does it hurt to have a portion of your colon removed?" No, it tickles...of course it hurts, dumb question. I think you get the point.
One of the first things you do when you have a serious health issue, is you look at the odds of a good outcome. It's human nature to try and correlate those odds to your individual case. The problem is each case is individual. As of 2000 stage IIIB Rectal Cancer had a 5 year survival rate of about 45% according to the American Cancer Society. Yeah...55 out of 100 people with my Cancer don't make it 5 years. That number is a bit sobering, huh? On the other hand 45 do survive, unfortunately there's no way for anyone to know what group you're in. The 45% is a bit of a worst case number as it includes non-cancer deaths and the data is a bit old. A better number is probably is probably in the 60-70% range. Even then I have a number of things on my side, my age being probably the biggest one. If the cancer comes back, I'll be strong enough to kick in the teeth again. But, the fact is, there just isn't enough data of people my age to get at the survivability rate for my little demographic for my particular cancer. In the end, I'm not sure it matters. What if the survivability is 90%, that is still 10 people dying out of 100. Is that suppose to be comforting? Not if your one of the 10. In the end the odds are what they are. It really doesn't matter what the odds of getting struck by lightening are to the guy that gets struck by lightening, because his day just got really bad. I have basically been struck by lightening. Out of 300,000,000 people in the US about 150,000 are diagnosed with Colon Cancer. Of that 150,000 only 10% are younger than 50. So that takes the 150,000 to 15,000. The numbers are a little sketchy, but of the 15,000 approximately 1500 are less than 35 when diagnosed. So, I'm one of 1500 in the entire US to get Colon Cancer under 35. About 400 people a year get struck by lightening. So really you have two options let the scary numbers scare you or not worry about them knowing that I will do everything in my power to punch caner in the nose over and over again until one of us wins. I'll choose the later.
One of the other things that go through one's mind is, "what caused this?" Unfortunately a question like this could drive you crazy, because no one knows what exactly flips the switch of a epithelial cells that gets them to start multiplying unchecked. There are risk factors like smoking, obesity, drinking, to much red meat, lack of physical exercise and genetics. But all they prove is correlation not causation. Maybe 'Fat Nick' and all those burritos I ate for lunch were the cause, but there are plenty of people who are infinitely less healthy than 'Fat Nick' ever was, yet they never get Colon Cancer. So in the end I'll never know what caused the runaway cells and it was likely some mutation that there was no way to control. With that said I'll probably be living a bit healthier, so don't expect the return of 'Fat Nick'. Yeah I know, he was a fun guy and his head doubled as a basket ball, but he's gone from this world.
I will say it sucks to have to start contemplating your morality at such a young age. No fun at all. Lindsey and I were forced to have hard conversations about the future of our family. We were going to start trying for kid number two last October. But, "surprise you have cancer", kind of put a halt to those plans. So kid number two goes on hold, or is there even going to be a kid number two? It's really easy to say, "oh just live your life," or some other free spirit BS. To some extent I agree, you don't want every waking thought to be, "damn...I might die in a couple months." With that said a more than healthy percentage of stage 3 cancer patients, don't make it to five years. Would it be responsible of Lindsey and I knowing that, to pop out kids like Pez candy? I personally don't think so. If I'm gone who's going to kill the spiders in the house? It's crappy to have to think about these things, but in the end we both have responsibilities and not taking into account a future potential issue is irresponsible, in my opinion.
With all of that said given the free and clear signal, the significant reduction in the amount of crazy drugs I'm taking, and appropriate length of time to ensure there are no 3 eyed swimmers left in me, we are going to try for another kid. With Linds and I both having siblings and how cool it is, we just can't imagine Oliver going through life without that.
This all might sound a bit pessimistic to some, but it's real and sometimes reality isn't all that great.
