Monday, October 31, 2011

Last Time...


This is a positive thought. I am not the first and I will not be the last person to espouse this philosophy, but if you preface everything you do with "This may be the last time I..." then I guarantee you will get more from the experience.

Yesterday I lined up for the start of what will hopefully not be my last bike race. (Just to deflate the drama a little more, I'm registered for another race this Saturday.) Knowing that I won't be racing for sometime, knowing why I was riding so slowly, knowing so many people came out just to support me, I rode better than I have in weeks.

It goes without saying that I savoured every turn of the pedals. The fact that my results weren't half bad was one hell of a bonus.

Thanks to my friend Rob MacEwen for the shot; this picture truly does say a thousand words.

Look how happy this guy is:


Saturday, October 29, 2011

I Have A Date With a Knife

My surgery is now booked: November 14, 2011.

My operation will be a distal pancreatectomy, meaning that I'll be lighter by a spleen and half a pancreas:


(Tumour not to scale?)


If all goes well the entire lesion will be removed and nothing else will be found. Other possible outcomes include the removal of as-yet-undiscovered lesions, inability to remove as-yet-undiscovered lesions, non-discovery of as-yet-undiscovered lesions, and the usual dangers of surgery and anaesthesia for which I have already signed consent forms.

A slight kick in the pants I received when Christi and I met my surgeon and some of his team on October 27th was the fact that my surgery will be followed up with chemotherapy.

Somehow this made me feel more..."cancery." Looking back, up until that point, while fully aware that I had cancer, I sort of saw myself as just a guy who needed an operation. The thought of chemo really drives home the fact that I have a disease.

On a related/unrelated note: you can fool a lot of people in this world, but you can't fool your mother; my brother Chris and I picked her up from the airport on Thursday, and it only took a few minutes to get from "hello" to "I knew you had cancer." There was obviously shock and tears, but I'd say she's holding up remarkably well. I think a great fear for any parent is leaving young children behind, but equally great is the fear of outliving your children - so I can imagine the swirl of her thoughts.

Best to wrap up on a happy note: my Interneting and TV watching is way down because I'm spending so much time with people I love.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Today is a Big Day

I'm meeting my surgeon. Hopefully that will be good.

I'm telling my mom. That won't be good.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

My Wife

A cheer for my wife:


Caring
Honest
Responsible
Insightful
Sexy!
Thoughtful
Intelligent

Yaaaay, Christi!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Dates

The idea of a "cancer birthday" was first introduced to me by the giant soapbox that is Lance Armstrong. (His story is a nice one, but as a cyclist I see him as perhaps the largest obstacle ever to drug-free cycling.)

Mine is October 20th, 2011.

Catching up on my New Yorkers, I read a devastating article in the June 13/20 issue. "The Aquarium," written by Aleksandar Hemon about the ruinous consequences of his nine month old daughter's suffering from atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (A.T.R.T.). In it, he talks about "the moment that divided our life into before and after." Always a gatherer of great thoughts instead of a great thinker, I was pleased to have someone else crystalize so clearly how Christi, myself, and my brothers are feeling.

And then it got me thinking - and this is not a great thought - that my parents will always know a different date.

My mom comes in from Scotland on October 27th. That will be her date. My dad returns from India October 30th. That will be his date.

My reason for not telling them is simple: they will both enjoy a few extra days of before. I hope they see it that way.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Meet My Lesion

Size: 3.5 x 3.3 cm
Location: mid body of the pancreas
Metastasis: unlikely
Age: a lady never tells
Likes: causing intermittent stabbing pains and nighttime aching in the stomach, stiff back, lack of sleep, and long walks on the beach
Dislikes: rude people, good surgeons

Saturday, October 22, 2011

A Little Background on Finding the Cancer

In late August some back pain flared up. This was nothing new to me - a couple of times each year I pull or tweak something, but a massage and a few days of light activity always does the trick. I happened to be vacationing with friends and family at a rented cottage, and the biking was great so I rode through the soreness. At the same time I started having some pretty sharp pains in my stomach. I can't really recall when during the day or how often they occurred, but it certainly didn't seem like a big deal.

Looking back, I suppose the first sign was the way I was riding. Over the course of a week I rode 110, then 85, then 65 kms, and I had some pretty terrible bonks on each ride - this was after a summer where I had shown more jump, power and top speed than ever before. It kind of pissed me off that I seemed to be losing my form just as Cyclocross season was about to begin.

Christi and I decided to do a small cleanse once we returned to the city to shake off all the food and beer we'd enjoyed at the cottage. I thought that maybe my stomach was alerting me to some new allergy, (I have none) so chopping out wheat, sugar, and booze for a week seemed like a good approach. And I can honestly say that during that week my stomach hardly bugged me at all. My back, on the other hand, was still quite sore. Since this was not normal for me I redirected the massages I usually have done on my legs to my back - with no luck.

So in mid-September with my stomach flaring up and my back still barking at me I went to see my doctor. The most likely cause was a bacteria called Helicobacter Pylori. So I filled a prescription and started popping pills. But I was immediately distracted by the arrival of my new cross bike. The night I picked it up I had a great Thursday ride with my SSOL (Sound Solutions) teammates. That next Tuesday Owen and I hit the first Cross at Centennial session - where I won the end of night race (which is very informal and not always hotly contested) for the first time ever. I was brimming with excitement and suddenly felt like I was flying.

But the very next day I woke up feeling flu-ish and limped into the first race, where I completely sucked.


Does this look like a guy who's doing something he loves?

Christi and the kids had come with me and we retired to the St. Catharines Best Western for some swimming, mini golf and dinner at The Keg with some friends. I was determined to race better the next day, and I did. But as 'okay' as I was feeling on the bike I was feeling worse and worse off the bike. I was feeling run down: I couldn't seem to get through a full week of work, I was going to bed early, and worst of all, I wasn't enjoying the taste of Steam Whistle!

Since the pills weren't doing anything tangible for my stomach I went back to my doctor; he quickly booked me in for a gastroscopy and an ultrasound. The gastroscopy was my big hope. I'm not sure what I expected them to find, but I was pretty confident that some ulcer-type thing was to blame. (Although I admit I was not comfortable with the idea of succumbing to stress, since I naively consider myself above that sort of thing.) The procedure itself was no big deal, but outside some spots of irritation there were no major findings.

The next day was my ultrasound, but I unwittingly blew the timing on this one. Now I know that a gastroscopy that fills one's stomach with air does not enhance the accuracy of an ultrasound the very next day. The woman scanning me said she couldn't get a good look at my pancreas because of it - although in retrospect I think the mass was probably visible but not visible enough to confirm. Either way I had to book another appointment.

While all this testing and re-testing was going on I squeezed in two more races. I came DFL (dead f*cking last) in both. It may seem silly to keep going on about this, but how I feel on the bike informs how I feel in a very major way. I am certain that if I was still beating the guys I was beating last year I may not have pursued my problems with the same amount of gusto; underperformance is a great motivator!

Here's where I can start getting specific. I went in for my follow-up ultrasound on Tuesday, October 18th. This was the first time I got the feeling something was wrong. The fellow scanning me took an awfully long time going over the same area. He left the room a few times and asked my who my doctor was. I'm sure that information was on my form, but I immediately thought: "This guy wants to call my doctor right now."

That afternoon I was in an edit suite when my phone rang. My doctor's assistant asked if I had a few minutes. Every call I'd ever had was just confirming that my blood work or ECG was clean, so this was bad sign number two. Knowing something bad was coming I felt remarkably calm and disconnected as the assistant told me with such sweet kindness: "You have a mass that's about four and a half centimetres in your pancreas. The doctor wants you to have a CT scan. I'm calling you right back with your appointment."

On Wednesday the 19th Christi and I met with my doctor. I always knew he was a veteran, but I am still impressed with his bedside manner. What he told us was as factual as possible with no sugar coating, but the room was filled with his confidence and sureness as he made it clear that despite the fact I was a healthy, young, non-smoker, there was a chance I had pancreatic cancer. The only difference between me and Steve Jobs was a slightly fuller resume and a few billion bucks. Christi was a rock in the meeting. She knew what all the medical words meant and asked many questions that were out of the realm of my swimming brain.

The next morning I was in the hospital getting my CT scan. Again, this was not an unpleasant experience. The technicians were positive and friendly, and the scan itself was kind on cool. It was done in minutes.

Which meant it didn't take long to get the call on Thursday, October 20th that I did indeed have cancer.

So, to the best of my recollection, those are the facts and markers. There have been a lot of tears and even more emails since then. I'll share my thoughts and feelings - so many of them wonderful and uplifting - in the following posts.