July 18, 2023
We arrived for the colonoscopy at 12:30. They took him back for the procedure at 1:11. They called me to come to recovery at 2:05. David was pale, irritated and in discomfort when I got there (he is a little grumpy coming out of anesthesia) Dr. G stopped by to report he found a mass in the colon and he biopsied it. He also performed 4 polypectomies. His opinion was that the pathology on the biopsy would most likely show a malignancy. “It is Cancer” I held David’s hand and squeezed as hard as I could. I was trying to will the tears to just wait. Dr, G. said we would receive a letter with the lab results. Stunned, I felt like I should ask something so I said the first thing I could think of which was “how bad do you think it is” and he said he didn’t know. I knew it was a stupid question as soon as it left my mouth. I recall sitting there in silence for a few moments. As if all sounds around us ceased to exist. The nurse then got up to help David get up and get dressed while quietly whispering prayers for the both of us. She said I could bring the car around. Not to sound overly dramatic, but I walked out of there thinking how was I to just simply walk calmly out to the car. I felt as if I were navigating through jello. My feet didn’t want to move but also they wanted to run. I refused to make eye contact with anyone in the elevator or as I made my way through the hospital to the parking lot. I remember thinking I would surely have a panic attack and once I hit the pavement I said out loud to myself, you just have to make it to the car. Only 50 steps. Only 10 more steps. I managed to drive around to the place the nurse told me to go. I picked David up and we drove through the parking lot stunned. I parked in a spot, and we sat there in silence for a while just holding hands with the weight of the information. Just trying to process it all. I finally looked at David with tears in my eyes and said… “f*ing cancer”.
NOT LIKE TV (-d)
I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but for me I tend to describe it as “not like it is on TV” or movies or whatever. There were no padded leather chairs in a big wooden office with the doctor on one side of the desk and my family gathered around the other for an announcement. Then a lot of emotion and/or discussion, etc. In hindsight, that’s nothing I would have wanted anyway. For me there was the news it was most likely cancer, some helpful numbers, pictures, and drawings, and the next contacts and things that would happen, then there was silence. Not actual silence mind you. There was the noise of the recovery area, the guy next door who just happened to have my same first name, there was the older nurse with an accent quietly praying blessings for me and my family after she heard and was helping get things together, there was the squeeze and the feel/sound of emotion I from my wife, and the general feeling of knowledge around me that I was moving on to another significant step in this process. But for me there was silence in my own head. Later in the car that silence would end and in the hour or so on they way home, I would look basically everything you shouldn’t look up after getting any of the information I had. After that, the only way I can describe it is that I lost several days to… I don’t even know what thoughts or feelings. I just remember kind of coming to a few days later knowing I couldn’t continue down that path or feeling like that and that I had to come back out of it. So I did. And I refuse to and have not visited those places since.
