Author: admin

First, a quick note in case you missed it: I made a post with the details for our upcoming fundraiser, as well as a way to donate online if you can’t make it in person! The post is here!

I briefly mentioned, a few posts ago, that last year’s radiation treatments and daily trips to Winnipeg had been on my mind. That’s intensified as we’ve gotten further into July, and I’ve had to be patient with myself as emotions have come and gone.

One reaction that surprised me was about a certain pair of shorts. I liked to insist to my kids that “shorts don’t exist”, partly to troll them and partly because I basically never wore shorts anyway. In a stunning victory for them, I finally conceded that shorts DO exist and bought a pair to keep comfy on the summer drives to Winnipeg.

After months of languishing in the closet, a couple of weeks ago I put them on again to take my daughter to her swimming lessons on a hot day. Even though I was driving and the circumstances were quite different, I noticed within a few minutes setting that I now hated the shorts. I wanted to get out of them as soon as possible. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to change at home, and the shorts were donated shortly thereafter.

Another wave of emotion came from a more recent trip to Winnipeg. I have been in and out of the city several times since my treatments and surgery, and navigating the city for various reasons has not been troublesome. In this case however, I needed to make a stop at the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation offices for our lemonade stand supplies. And, those offices are directly across the street from where I would go for radiation treatments.

Most of the drive in felt okay. I had an audiobook to distract me, so even though it was a hot and mildly cloudy day and I was copying my route to treatments I didn’t think too much of it. Things started to feel weird when I stopped at a certain gas station to use the bathroom, which is a stop I made often in those days. Looking at myself in the mirror there, on a day like that day, felt…weird, for lack of a better term. Mildly uncomfortable.

What made things more uncomfortable was going from there and continuing to copy my treatment route. Against the backdrop of a July day, I started to see many of the landmarks and waypoints I’d clocked every day back than. It wasn’t a flood, but a steady stream of memories; conversations with drivers, of events surrounding those trips, of treatments themselves and the way I felt. It wasn’t destabilizing, thank goodness, and I felt I could still safely operate my car, or I’d have pulled over and stopped. On the other hand it was still A Lot, and as I got nearer and nearer I had to start repeating to myself, out loud: You’re okay. This is not that time. Now is not then.

If I hadn’t latched on to that idea, and remembered to breathe, I probably would have had to pull over eventually. As it was I made it to my destination without incident. (I’ll admit that now, as then, finding street parking in the vicinity of the Health Sciences Centre is a real challenge. Some things stay the same)

I’m not surprised by my reactions to the trip, and to my old shorts. I am a little surprised at their strength, and I wonder if this sort of thing will keep happening, but I think I’ve weathered the worst of that particular storm for now. I’m extremely grateful that Now is Not Then, and that I’ve survived all the worst days of my life so far; I also noticed, in the stream of memories on my drive, an enormous sense of gratitude to the drivers and other folks who helped us out during treatments last year. I decided, before I’d even parked the car, that I was going to go through my driver list and message or otherwise contact everybody once again to say thanks. (The project is still ongoing but I’m nearly done). That’s been a really positive exercise.

The following is a message from cassidycat. She would like you to read it aloud.

cassidycat is the G.O.A.T AND SHE IS AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TREES ARE AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HUG A TREE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CATS ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! HUG A MAILBOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HUG A CAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This concludes the message. Thank you for your attention.

My fundraising page is live!

Our stand will be at 780 Townsend Drive in Winkler on Saturday, July 26th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you can’t make it out, please consider clicking the link to donate online at your convenience!

Your donations fund cancer research and treatment care for Manitobans like me. And even though I’m a cancer survivor now, it’s time for me to help pay it forward!

A few weeks ago I learned about the Japanese word komorebi, which as I understand it, literally translates as “sunlight leaking through trees”. It’s a word that describes the way light hits the ground after filtering through branches and leaves. Like so:

In the summer, this effect is everywhere in my community. Being so commonplace can make it invisible, so it’s something I’ve been challenging myself to pause and notice. Doing this has introduced a just little more calm and reflection to my days right now, and also encouraged me to notice other small moments of beauty and tranquility in otherwise ordinary circumstances. I’ve been looking downward a lot!

(It’s funny because there are times in my life where I need to remind myself to look up, as I’m brooding and drooping my head as I move through the world. Physically looking upward honestly helps me break out of that. Sometimes you gotta look up, and sometimes you gotta look down.)

The other thing about komorebi is that the pattern of light and shadow you see exists once, in the moment you see it, and is never quite the same again. If you return to the same spot tomorrow, the wind might be different, or the clouds, or the way the branches and leaves are arranged. Even an hour later and the sun’s angle will have changed. Heck, if there’s even a mild breeze, the pattern changes from moment to moment.

Thinking about this also helps me to notice things and find the New, or the Different, in the everyday and the routine. No two days are exactly the same! I learned a little of this when doing daily trips to Winnipeg last summer, and commented on it in these pages. It’s come back around again. For instance, I’ve walked my little boy over to his daycare dozens of times, so I ask myself, how is this one different? Are we talking about something new? Is there something to wonder about along the way? What can I see or hear?

It’s a way to stay present and interested, and to appreciate the fact that I’m still here and, and I get to experience new things each day. Even if they’re very small.

One Last Thing!!

This year we’ll be running our Lemonade Stands for Hope fundraiser for CancerCare Manitoba again! Please save July 26th on your calendars, and keep an eye on this site for more details as they come in 🙂

It was a year ago this week that I started the radiation treatments and the first round of chemotherapy. As the weather has turned warmer and the trees greener, I’ve definitely been thinking back to last summer and those daily trips to Winnipeg. I’m pleased that I’m in a very different place this summer, even if this summer is different again from every summer before my diagnosis. (Okay yes, every summer of your life is always different than the one before it, but I mean specifically that this summer I’m pooping into a bag, which is something most of us don’t normally do).

Looking back over my blog posts and the timestamps, I had forgotten already that the treatments lasted for just over a month. The side effects hung around for longer, but the almost-daily Mountains of Pills + Car Ride to CancerCare went from June 20th to July 26th. 0.2% of my life, if my napkin math is accurate, but at the time it was everything. I wrote back then about being unable to think about the future, and just getting through the days. A valuable skill that we humans possess! But, it feels weird that I’d have to refer to my own blog posts to bring back details of something huge and novel that happened only a year ago. That’s the other valuable skill, I suppose — to be able to forget and move forward.

I guess I knew about this from when our kids were babies. You’d sit up with them at night as time dragged on, and it began to feel like their little rooms were the entire world and the night would never end. Now, those nights feel like ages ago. To quote a certain podcast I listened to long ago, I’m “…left with nothing but a powerful wonder at the fleeting nature of even the most important things in life”.

So I’m learning that This Too Shall Pass. As with many of the life lessons I’ve learned on this journey, it’s something I already sort of knew. I think the trick is to remember these things the next time a difficult situation arises. Also, in this case, I want to learn grace, patience, and empathy for those who are going through their own world-encompassing struggles. Even if I think their problem is trivial or I know it will pass, I know how these situations can feel like everything, and maybe I can best help by just being there and sitting with them through it.

Speaking of radiation, my posts from that time seem to have glided over the details of the discomfort I was feeling. To tell the truth, as the treatments went on, I was in a lot of pain every time I’d go to the bathroom, and I came to dread the feeling of an impending bowel movement. Pain medication helped with the time between trips, but couldn’t remove the sharp, intense discomfort of actually going. Warm baths helped as well, and I started running one as soon as I entered the bathroom, knowing I’d be clambering into it shortly.

One of my posts mentions a “low point”, which I believe was referring to a moment during treatments when the pain was at its worst. The burning was so intense that I felt like I couldn’t operate my legs correctly, and in desperation I ended up just lying facedown in the bathroom, sobbing. This drew Lori’s attention but there wasn’t much to do except wait for the sensation to pass. I’m telling this story now because I wanted to talk about the thing that helped me get back up, and it was this image:

This is a picture taken of the computer I write these posts on. The image on the screen is a single frame from the volleyball-themed anime Haikyuu!!, depicting its protagonist Hinata, facedown on the floor. He’s in anguish, having run himself ragged in sheer frustration after a devastating defeat. Teeth gritted, with tears on his face, he’s clenched his fists. In the next shot, however, he gets back up, with new resolve to continue practicing and improving himself. It’s a powerful moment that becomes part of the end-credits montage of the show.

I was watching the series at that time as a comfort show, so I’d seen that image many times before the moment I found myself on the floor, teeth gritted and in tears. Yet in that moment of suffering, the image of Hinata came to me, and like him, I clenched my fists and struggled upward and into the bath again.

Until surgery, things rarely got that bad again, thank God. After that, I would often admit to Lori that even though I was uncomfortable or in pain, I wasn’t “lying on the bathroom floor”. I often thought of that image of Hinata as well. It wasn’t really something I drew from again after that, but sometimes unexpected things can help you in a specific moment. I’ll always be grateful to the writers and animators of Haikyuu!!, half a world away and whom I’ll never meet.

Since folks have expressed interest in the day-to-day mechanics of having a colostomy, today I’m going to write about changing your bag. There will also be a bit of a tribute to my Mom, in light of her birthday this past week.

But first, let’s talk about bag changes. I swap mine out every 3-4 days. That’s based on advice I was given at the outset, and I would not want to push further than 5 days unless I absolutely had to. This is mainly for two reasons. One is the bag’s structural integrity, meaning that they can develop leaks through normal wear-and-tear, and that’s a bad time. The other is that bags are just stuck to my body like big ol’ stickers, and that adhesive gradually lets go, largely due to sweat. Actually, the first time we talked about all this with an Ostomy Program nurse was also the first and only time a medical professional was happy with my sedentary lifestyle. She knew I’d have an easier time getting adjusted if I didn’t have to change bags as often.

So, it’s bag change time, now what? First step is to turn on the bluetooth speaker in my bathroom and get some tunes going. Something energetic and upbeat is good. Then I lay out everything I’m gonna need. I keep a travel kit of supplies in a small pouch that I take everywhere, and that kit has the good scissors, so I leave to go find it. It was still in the car, again. I put out wet and dry disposable wipes, a fresh bag, and a tube of Stomadhesive. I have other supplies in a nearby drawer as well.

I take the fresh bag, and the good scissors, and cut a hole in one side to fit my stoma. Everybody’s is different, and bags always come with these paper sizing guides so you can get an idea. They’re little cardstock sheets with a series of circles cut out, and you just put them up against your tummy to see which one best suits your stoma. There are also concentric rings on the sticky side of the bag to help guide your cut. I give myself a small margin; too tight and it’ll feel uncomfortable, but too large and you increase leak risks again. Plus mine’s kinda oval-shaped, so I work with that too. The good scissors are good because their ends are blunted; normal scissors, with pointed ends, run a higher chance of puncturing the bag before you’ve even put it on.

So, cut out the hole in the new bag, and then it’s the part I’ve been avoiding for as long as possible; peel off the old one. This never feels good; think of every time you’ve had to peel off medical tape or the like, and the hair it inevitably takes along. I can mitigate this effect by shaving that part of my stomach, and I’m told it will gradually get better with time; presumably this will be when I’ve pulled out every last hair from the area 🙁

I re-use bread and produce bags as garbage bags, so the old bag goes in there straight away. Now my stoma’s exposed, and I want to spend as little time on this stage as possible, because, again, there’s no muscle for control. If my body decides in that moment to ‘move product’ there is currently nowhere good for the product to go. This is why I was trained to lay everything out and prepare as much as possible beforehand; we’re minimizing the exposure time as much as we can. (Have messes happened in the past while in this stage? Reader, I must retain some dignity and keep that answer to myself.) I clean up the stoma area, and I’ll often use special wipes to clean up any adhesive residue on the skin surrounding the area. This stuff is annoying, and leaves a film on your hand.

Once the area’s clean and dry I’m ready for the new bag. I take the Stomadhesive and lay a bead around the hole I’ve cut in the bag; it’s thicker than toothpaste and light brown, smells weird, and acts as a kind of glue to seal the area and help keep the bag in place. This stuff is also annoying, so even though time is of the essence, it’s important to go slowly and do a good job in one pass, just because of how difficult it is to adjust a misplaced spot afterward. And if this stuff gets on your hands, ugh. Remember caking your fingers in white glue in school, so you could peel it off? Feels a little like that, only it doesn’t peel. It’s horrible to get off. In the early going I thought of buying a big bottle of that Fast Orange soap that mechanics use, but instead I learned to slow down and do better work.

Okay! The bag is now prepared, so I gently press it on myself and clamp a hand over my stoma for the next ten minutes. I was told that my body heat activates the Stomadhesive, so this is sort of sealing everything in place. Meanwhile, I try to use my free hand to clean up. (I don’t have to keep pressure on the area for every second of the next ten minutes, so I can quickly use both hands as needed).

And then I’m ready! Right now this all takes me 20-25 minutes, and it will be my routine, twice a week, for presumably the rest of my natural life. However, as I like to point out, medical technology advances every day and there may be possibilities in the coming decades that we couldn’t imagine now. Who knows?

Let’s completely shift gears here, near the end of this post. June 3rd, this past Tuesday, would have been my mother’s 75th birthday. I briefly mentioned her in the early days of this blog. Her name was Eunice. She loved reading, was an amazing cook and baker, went for walks on the hottest days of summer, and had a brilliant smile that I see in my son Avery now. In the fall of 2016 she was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer, and by the end of January 2017 she was gone. Every year since then, on her birthday, I try to visit her grave with a cup of Tim Hortons coffee (small with one cream, her favorite). And I talk, and open the floodgates for a bit.

This year landed harder because of the milestone birthday, and because I’m now a survivor where she was not. I’ve thought of her often in this past year of my life — I think her often, regardless — but it was especially poignant to have been on this journey without her. I try not to get too far into the weeds of wondering Why, but when I was visiting this past Tuesday, I came to the conclusion that it’s now my job to show my kids her kindness, humility, and gentle spirit. Seeing as she’s not around to do it herself.

On rare occasions I dream of chatting with her, and I like to think that it’s just possible, through the mysteries of time and space, of life and the hereafter, that it’s really her. And if that’s the case, I told her she was welcome to keep visiting.

My wife’s aunt suggested that I could take reader questions about my ostomy or whatever else I’ve written about thus far. I think that sounds great, so if you have a question you’d like me to write about in a future post, you can:

• message me on Facebook or Instagram
• leave a comment on this post
• send a letter via electronic mail (e-mail, they’re calling it) to npfehr [at] gmail [dot] com
• or I guess just ask me in person!

One thing Aunt Bev had wanted to know herself was about dietary requirements these days. Were there definite do’s and don’ts, or had they changed since before having a colostomy? I looked back on this blog and it looks like I wrote about some stuff we were trying in the weeks after I got home, but not much after that.

Generally speaking I am still working with the advice my dietitian gave me last year; avoid heavily processed or cured meats due to nitrates and their link to increased colorectal cancer risk. Red meats are a ‘sometimes’ food, so as a household we are still in the habit of mostly eating chicken or plant-based proteins, but I’ll definitely have a hamburger here and there.

Post-surgery we had read a lot of advice about different kinds of foods to focus on or avoid with an ostomy, but it turned out that was a bit of overachieving on our part. When I spoke about this to the Ostomy Program nurse, I was told that a lot of online dietary advice is for people with Ileostomies rather than Colostomies. An Ileostomy is higher up, exiting from the small intestine instead, and I’m told they are more finicky and difficult to manage. The intestines have had much less time to do their intestiney things when food exits. The nurse reassured me that following the ileostomy dietary restrictions would certainly not harm me, but it probably wasn’t necessary in the long term.

Turned out they were right; looking back I think it mostly just took time for my guts to heal and settle down from major surgery, rather than reacting to any specific thing I was eating or drinking. That said, the things that upset my tummy before, like large quantities of onions, dairy, or watermelon (as it turns out this week) will still upset me now. For the most part, these days I do not worry about what I put in my body beyond my general health and the cancer risk guidelines I mentioned earlier.

I will admit — Sorry Kim! — that the dietary advice to avoid things with increased cancer risk seemed like too little too late at times. I only got this advice after I was already diagnosed, and wouldn’t it have been more beneficial ten years earlier? Why am I trying to mitigate my cancer risk when I’ve already been diagnosed? Why close the barn door after the horses have already escaped, to coin a phrase? The rationale at that time was that we were giving my body its best fighting chance, instead of continuing to pile on the things that had gotten me in trouble in the first place. I didn’t always feel like it, but I went with it.

Continuing to follow these guidelines still feels a little silly, because now I’m like: “yeah, but I already DID the whole cancer thing, and we fixed it.” As though there’s no way that particular problem could ever come back. As though cancer has a Double Jeopardy rule and the same kind won’t harm the same person twice.

I know this isn’t rational to think, and I’m going to keep trying to do right by this body of mine. But, I’m sure I’m not alone in getting through a difficult medical situation and feeling as though that particular problem is done and dusted forever.

I’ve had this colostomy deal for three whole months now and, as far as I can tell, I haven’t written about farting at all. That ends today >:(

Rude content warning: this post is about farts.

So, yes, I still get gas and I still fart. But (hehe), there are two major differences now. The first is that the expelled gas and smells get captured by my colostomy bag. The bags I currently use have a small charcoal-filtered vent at the top, which helps to keep the bag from ballooning up and ensures that no smells emanate from it. It works pretty well, but occasionally it can’t keep up and the bag balloons up anyway. This feels weird and not nice, so it’s necessary to vent the bag.

That’s done by opening the ‘drain’ end of the bag, holding it up so nothing else gets out, and kinda squeezing the excess air out. And honestly, the smell is brutal. It is punishing, and it lingers. This makes sense when you consider that venting a bag is actually like farting four or five times simultaneously. I try never to do it when anybody’s around; otherwise I’ll find a well-ventilated but enclosed space (like a bathroom) or, now that the weather’s nicer, just go outside for a moment. Once, Lori walked into the living room at least ten minutes after I’d vented and asked me if one of the pets had pooped behind a couch or something.

That’s the first major difference between farting before and now. The other major difference is that I no longer have control of when or how they happen. The typical human exit point for gas has a muscle to work with, and my stoma does not. As a result, I no longer have the option to hold things or otherwise be discreet; my stoma can and will interrupt my day with fart sounds as loudly and as frequently as it wants. At times I can feel a fart coming just before it happens, but otherwise my stoma seems to have a mind and comedic timing all its own.

(Yes, I can make dietary changes or use over-the-counter drugs to mitigate the gassiness; generally it actually hasn’t been so bad or embarrassing just yet. On the other hand, that one customer service worker renewing my driver’s licence is probably still wondering if I completely soiled myself in front of him. Neither of us commented on the horrible fart sound when it happened, and to his credit, he kept a completely straight face)

My plan going forward is to simply apologise and say “I have a medical condition” in most situations, and leave it at that. If I’m in the prolonged company of people who don’t know me so well, as I was last Tuesday, I’ve rehearsed a slightly longer explanation that should serve to get ahead of the awkwardness. Actually, that particular night, my stoma was well-behaved and only quietly burbled a few times. However, I wanted to make a good impression and felt it wise to just take a moment and address things. Part of my longer explanation is also to say a.) that it’s not a taboo subject for me and b.) folks are very unlikely to offend me with questions or jokes.

(I hedge a little there because people are creative and I’m sure someone could find new ways to hurt my feelings about this issue, if they really tried. I do not want them to try.)

The ostomy program nurses warned me about all of this, but it’s another thing again to experience it. Oh, actually hang on, I just wrote that it hadn’t really been embarrassing, but my stoma did get a little rowdy during a play we went to in Winnipeg. It was mid-show and not really the moment to explain myself so I just tried to smother it in layers of clothing plus a jacket. That felt bad. It quieted down, but I spent the rest of the show ready to bolt for the door if I felt the pressure build again.

Overall I’m still grateful to be here, even if it means my body will randomly make rude noises. And I’m grateful that most people have responded with good humour, because we’re all human and farts…are pretty funny.

A Guest Post by Lori Fehr

A little while ago, Nathan asked me if I would do a guest blog post. Since then, I have debated what I would write about. I thought I could share about what it’s like to walk alongside someone through a difficult time when you are used to walking together. There are certain parts of this journey that Nathan and I experienced very differently. Like walking in the same forest on the same path, and then suddenly being forced to walk on separate, but parallel paths.

Or, I could share about how Nathan and I cope differently in stressful times. I cope by ruminating over all possible scenarios (usually dwelling on the worst case) and preparing for them all. Compared to Nathan, who says he’d rather hope for the best and cross the more difficult bridges only if we get to that point. 

I thought maybe someone would want to read about what it has been like to navigate this last year with young children. Or what I’ve learnt about trying to manage the things I can control and letting go of the rest (still a work in progress). Or maybe about learning to be present in the good and more challenging moments, and finding sacred moments in ordinary situations. 

However, the thing I have been reflecting the most about lately is: what do you do when emergency measures are over and we are told that we can go back to “normal“? What does “normal” look like now?

I was thinking about backup power generators. This might seem like a jump, but hang in there, I will explain. When the power goes off at a hospital, for example, there are backup generators that kick in fairly quickly. But just because we have power from the generator doesn’t mean that we are using all the power at full capacity. When the backup generator is used, power is limited and diverted intentionally to the essential areas. For example the lights are dimmer, and only a fraction of the outlets have power, just to name a few of the differences. 

That is how the last year has felt. We have been in survival mode, conserving our energy, time, and brain space for appointments, treatments, keeping the household running, and the bare essentials. Now we are being told that the power is back on (so to speak). We’ve been in conservation mode for so long that it’s hard to remember where we used to use all that extra brain space, energy, and time. And now we have a choice of where to redirect some of this newfound energy. This is a bit overwhelming sometimes. When the power has been off for a while and suddenly returns…you become very aware of how bright those lights are, and how noisy the fans and appliances are when they are on full power and working order. 

After a life changing event, it’s normal to wonder who you are now that ______ [fill in the blank] is a part of your story. And I think that is the work I get to do now. As an introvert, it is easy for me to get used to survival mode. There is comfort in just hunkering down and riding out a storm. It’s not necessarily healthy for me to stay in the storm cellar just in case another storm comes along. At some point I have to emerge after the storm, assess the damages, and do the work of rebuilding.

Another way of looking at it is to think about trees. Mighty trees lie dormant in the winter, though not because they’ve given up. It’s because they know that they need to stop, rest, and conserve their energy and nutrients in order to thrive in their next growing season. When winter is over, they continue to grow.

We have just emerged from a season of being in survival mode.  So I expect this next season of life to be one of growth, stretching, and change, as we cautiously step out into this “new normal” for our family. One that can never be the same as it was before, but one that I hope to experience with curiosity, intentional presence, and an open hand.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart for all your support this last year. We could not have done it without a community surrounding us with love, encouragement, good food, listening ears, and prayers. No words can ever express our gratitude!

Today is the one-year anniversary of getting my diagnosis. One year since the colonoscopy that we thought would be routine, but which showed a rude surprise. One year since Lori and myself took a moment to cry in the car outside the hospital, and afterward going for Subway before starting the drive home. A year since I stood in the kitchen and made myself say aloud “I have cancer.”

Today has been a very different day than that day, and thank the Lord for that.

Today I played music, ate a delicious cinnamon bun, watched Howl’s Moving Castle (as planned) and had a nice supper at the home of friends. Spirits are much higher, as you might expect. And, on the advice of my counsellor, I took a moment with my family to acknowledge aloud that we all worked hard at getting through the last year, and that was worth noticing and celebrating.

Another thing I discussed with my counsellor was identity. I did mention last week that I’d write about this, and here we are! I described an experience I’d recently had where someone from church asked how I had been doing lately, and I felt like I blanked. I didn’t have any recent treatment news to talk about anymore, nor anything in the immediate future. Outside of that, I also couldn’t think of anything else about myself to say. Later, I got into my own head as one does, and wondered to myself and later to Lori…who am I now? I’m physically not the same person as before I started, and I’m sure that extends to the emotional and spiritual parts of me as well. So…what am I like now?

My counsellor assured me that this was an extremely common thing to go through, post-cancer. To paraphrase her, I’ve assumed the identity of Cancer Patient for the past year and now that’s gone. It’s very normal to wonder exactly what I’m wondering, and there’s no quick path out of it. I had already started keeping a list in the notes app on my phone about things (and people) that I love; she told me to keep doing that. Some folks in my position apparently work through a list of suggestions, and use this as inspiration to try new things and surprise themselves.

I’m not planning to completely reinvent myself. I think most of what matters to me is fairly consistent from the before-times. I still want to be open to new experiences, but for instance I’m not suddenly super interested in learning to drive a motorcycle. However, it occurred to me this morning that maybe my experiences in the past year can help me be more confident, authentic, and at ease in the world.

A few days ago I listened to an interview with a comedian. She talked about how, despite being well-established and successful, she’d found herself doing a show in a comedy club that was getting absolutely no laughs at all. She said the whole thing suddenly seemed so hilarious to her — she’d had successful shows in much bigger venues, and certainly wasn’t new at the comedy scene anymore. She described climbing down from the stage mid-show to sit with some audience members at a front table and actually workshop, in the moment, what was and what was not working for them and the rest of the audience. Somehow this got the room on her side, and the rest proceeded well.

Reader, I was astonished. First, at her ability to laugh at the absurdity of it all. To step outside of herself and the situation, and say wow, this is really going poorly, and that is very funny. Then secondly, the humility that it takes to own a failure like that, and the freedom that comes from it. She didn’t blame the audience for not ‘getting it’, she didn’t deflect and say it was an ‘off night’, she didn’t get angry at the perceived disrespect. She calmly sat down and examined the situation with genuine curiosity and interest, and eventually it got better. I’m certain she didn’t spend the following days beating herself up over such a rocky start to the performance.

I’m afraid of making mistakes, and I’m even more afraid of upsetting anyone and harming my connection to them. So many times I’ve held back my authentic self, or my true opinions, because I’ve decided to prioritize comfort and safety. What if I was able to just sit in discomfort, knowing that I’ve lived through much worse? Maybe I could actually believe that I can’t please everyone, that mistakes will happen, and that I’m able to take up space and speak my mind, because no matter what happens as a result it probably won’t be worse than having cancer.

I want that to be a part of who I am, going forward. I think it will still take a long time for me to get there. I also think it is worth pursuing. Fortunately, my counsellor reminded me that there’s no timeline or due date on self-discovery. I look forward to the journey onward.

^{just kidding, I’m speed-running all of this and will have attained self-actualization by next week! Should be easy!}

In the past two weeks I’ve had followup conversations with both my chemotherapy doctor and my surgeon. These conversations have slightly complicated my good news and optimism. The news is still good! As far as anyone knows I am Cancer Free. So what’s complicated about that?

First of all, one of the things the chemo doc told me was that actually, thirty lymph nodes were “harvested” (weird word, unpleasant) rather than just a few. I still have tons left in my body, so that’s not the issue. Twenty-eight of the nodes were clear. Two had cancer cells. Hearing this, I became anxious, as you might imagine. No no, he assured me. This was totally expected. The news is still good. He wants a follow-up CT scan in a few months, but he told me that any future appointments aren’t as time-sensitive and can be rescheduled to fit around my life.

Our visit with the surgeon, a week later, was brief and followed a similar theme. Yes, those two lymph nodes had cells but they were probably the ones right near the tumor. There were nodes harvested from my hip region, further away, that were clear. There is the issue of a small hernia along the closed up part of my backside, of the kind which is really hard to do anything about surgically. So we’re just going to wait and see if it resolves itself. The surgeon wants a follow-up CT scan in fall, and a scope in a year. I suppose the hernia accounts for the discomfort I’m still experiencing when sitting for long periods of time.

“So as far as we know,” I asked worriedly, “I’m free of cancer?”

“Yes, as far as we know.” It was a relief to hear him say it, and yet the mood around us as we left and made the long walk back to the car was not one of elation. Now, in fairness, this was the late afternoon and our day had been fairly long by that point already. So Lori and I were naturally a bit low on energy. But I had thought that getting in-person confirmation like this would…maybe energize us a bit, y’know? Not that we’d be dancing in the streets exactly, but what I felt was much heavier than I’d imagined it would be.

As we walked, we talked over what we’d heard from the surgeon, and it felt to me that we were trying to convince each other that this was really good. I was puzzled and spent the next part of our drive home trying to identify what was going on in me, and with us.

Part of it is probably that the news is good but not Perfectly Good. Going from “lymph nodes were all clear” to “lymph nodes were mostly clear and it’s probably fine” was something of a comedown. And the not-easily-fixable hernia thing. I’ve been feeling well and wanted my recovery to be complete, which was probably not realistic in hindsight. And anyway, even if it was, it’s not like having a Perfect Recovery is going to put things back to how they were before this journey started. Still, I don’t feel ashamed of being a little crestfallen.

It’s also been suggested that after a year of ups and downs, being told “okay you’re good to go” might be hard to accept. That it might be difficult to trust good news after experiencing such bad news. I’m actually not very sure this is the case; I felt pretty good sharing my good news after the surgeon first phoned me. The idea does feel worth noting, however.

I’m more sure that Lori and I were also thinking that we’ve known people who got the All Clear and whose cancer came back. What if our good news is only a temporary reprieve? What if I’m right back in treatments and appointments in only a short time from now? What if, what if. We talked about this on the drive back from Winnipeg as well. The place we came to involved those words: As Far As We Know. We don’t know, so, in a way, we get to choose. Do we choose optimism? Gratitude? Faith? Or do I choose to withdraw inward, cultivate a bleak outlook and choose pessimism instead? I’m doing well these days, and it seems to me it’d be a terrible waste if I just sat around waiting for the good days to end. (Like falling into The Maw, from the previous post).

The thing is, we’ve had to go over this conversation and remind each other more than once since then. We’re trying to be upbeat and lean into optimism, but it’s not a one-and-done choice. This week I’ve started saying to myself “Today is a gift.” Not sure how long I’ll keep at it, but even when things seem chaotic or overwhelming, it makes me smile a little to remember that I get to be here today, doing whatever it is I’m doing, by God’s grace and the timely intervention of medical professionals.

It seems cheesy when I read it back to myself, but right now it’s working for me. Things are gonna be okay. Even if it goes bad again one day, right now, it’s like this, which overall is pretty good.

In a week from today it will be exactly one year since I got my diagnosis and this journey started. I plan to watch Howl’s Moving Castle, and later, write about identity or something. Also, tomorrow’s our 13th wedding anniversary! This, too, is a gift. (Which we plan to celebrate with some Boursin and mimosas 🙂)