Isn't it amazing how much your life can change in the space of a year.
If I think back over the course of my 42 years I doubt there is a single moment in my life where I could have predicted, with more than a modicum of success, the basic "state of play" in my life five years later - my Job, where I'm living, who I'm with, the state of my health etc. Looking back at any point in my life I find my guesses would have been radically wide of the mark. I continue to wonder at my life, like a bemused first person observer in the ultimate VR experience. The one thing I know for certain, life is full of surprises; some pleasant, some not so much.
At no point in my life would my guesses, about my future state of affairs, have been wider off the mark than they would have been a year and a half ago. The mother of all curl balls was coming my way and I didn't have a clue.
After more than a year suffering chronic constipation and stomach pains my new GP (and hero) decided that he suspected a gastric ulcer and sent me for an investigative gastroscopy.
A torturous 48hour fast, a two hour wait to get started and a bit of lively banter with the doctors and nurses in the theatre then I was off, to the sweet sweet dreamland of general anaesthetic induced unconsciousness.
I remember slowly returning to consciousness and the nurse telling me that the doctor who performed the procedure would like a chat with me. I was still struggling back to full alertness when doctor came over, perhaps that's why I remember so very little of what he said over the next 15minutes or so. I heard and retained only two things during the entire conversation. The first came pretty much right at the beginning of our "chat".
I had stomach cancer.
He did actually continue talking after he said that because I remember interrupting after a couple of minutes to ask what my chances were. The second thing I remember him telling me is his answer, maybe 10%.
Needless to say I left the hospital that afternoon in less than the best of spirits. After telling my wife Joanne the big news we both hopped online and did a couple of hours of horrific googling.
There followed a week I will not soon forget as I waited for the biopsies to confirm what the doctor had already told me.
If that week had been a roller coaster ride it would have been a cracker, because it was basically all downhill fast. Google had confirmed, to me at least, what the doctor had pretty much said anyway. I was doomed, a dead man walking. Survival rates for stomach cancer are currently shit house and any hope of a decent outcome depends on catching it early. Given that I'd been “bunged up” on and off for over a year that didn't seem to be likely in my case. Nonetheless I was determined to be optimistic and started trying to wrap my head around the idea of living life without a stomach, apparently my best case scenario at this point.
I remember one afternoon I was having a good cry about the fact that I was actually going to die (to this point I had pretty much considered myself immortal) and leave my 5 year old son Max without a father. Frankly, at the beginning, I could not even look at him without going completely to pieces. Anyway, One afternoon I was on the floor in the walk in wardrobe feeling proper sorry for myself, crying like a baby and bemoaning the fact that I was going to die, then desperately wishing to live (stomach or not) when I found myself laughing hysterically, reduced to tears again, this time of laughter – I'm not sure what it was I found so funny about the fact that I was wishing desperately for life without a stomach when only a few days before the idea would have scared me beyond shitless – perhaps my brain was attempting to recalibrate it's happiness settings in preparation for what was to come. Regardless I found myself crying tears of sorrow almost immediately afterwards again anyway.
At the end of the longest week of my life Joanne and I headed to the hospital once more for the results of the biopsies from the week before. The meeting is etched into my mind. An oncologist greeted us at the door to his office and asked me “So, what have you been told so far?”
“I've got stomach cancer and my odds are terrible?” I'd replied.
“In that case I've got good news for you. You've actually got lymphoma in your stomach and your chances are about 50/50.”
I dare say this was one of the best things anyone has ever said to me. There may have been someone out there in the world who was happier to be diagnosed with lymphoma than me but I seriously doubt it. I felt like I had won the lottery and Joanne had given birth to Max on the same day.
50/50 was solid odds, a fighting chance – Game on!
I carried that positive outlook with me when we drove down to Brisbane (we live in regional Queensland) to meet my haematologist for a formal diagnosis and staging. For those that follow the form on these things I was formally diagnosed with aggressive stage 2 Non Hodgkin DLBCL lymphoma and my chances were confirmed at about 50/50. I was informed that the best treatment was a course of R-chop chemotherapy and maybe a bit of follow up radiation. Given that I was relatively young and in good health they could pack in a dose every 2 weeks, rather than the usual three – hitting the cancer harder and hopefully getting the treatment over a bit quicker. The good news just kept coming. It was at this point I shaved my head into the Mohawk (photo on the left) figuring I'd make the most of my hair while I still had it as I'd been told it's days at least, were numbered.
I won't bore you (yet?) with the details of the six months of my treatment, this is supposed to be an intro not a life story after all. Suffice to say neither Jo or I enjoyed it very much. I spent the vast majority of the time lying around doing very little beyond being pumped full of drugs, feeling shit and exploring various new corners of the internet – I developed an interest in Antique silver, contemporary art glass marbles and Ethereum amongst others. My wife on the other hand had little choice but to reduce her hours working as a hairdresser and then take over running my pub poker business on the evening.
To cut a long story short in January this year the doc declared me in remission and I started back at work (much to my Joanne's relief). Six months away from work and some serious introspection had led me crave a change at work so Joanne and I split the poker nights between us and I got myself a job fixing eftpos machines (if you're not from Australia that's the little machines you stick your card in when you pay for something). The first three months have been interesting, to say the least, but I'm certainly not getting rich quick and it's not exactly my dream job. Which brings me here, to Steemit. The idea that I may be able to earn a few dollars for posting 'stuff' on here is immensely appealing. Maybe I won't be able to quit my job (seems like there are countless posts that appear to earn next to nothing) but if I can make a few dollars I'll feel like I'm actually earning money for something I quite enjoy doing, which will be a nice change.
The doctor tells me that the chances of the cancer reoccurring are around 30%. The longer I go without that happening the better my odds get. At five years the odds are back down close to zero. I'm assuming that after that the odds will actually go negative and I will again be immortal. I'm working hard to gain back my fitness and am happy enough with the weight loss. (Before I found out I had Lymphoma I was actually trying to lose weight for the first time. At the time I just thought that dieting was far easier than I'd been led to believe by my wife, turns out that wasn't quite the case... the Lymphoma diet – worked for me but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everyone.
Thanks for listening Steemit.
Leon signing off.