Stage One

This week, I checked into Stanford’s oncology department. I walked out of my doctor’s office having learned that I may have stage 1 cancer. “May” is an uncomfortable place to be. There is no certainty until surgeons remove parts of the tumor and pathology does their examination. It looks self-contained, but they need to inspect it to be sure. If it has spread further than we anticipate, I don’t know what comes next.

I’m hoping it’s in the early stages because I know that finding this at stage is pure chance. Earlier this year, I had my gallbladder removed. The attacks before and after the surgery were painful enough to put me through round after round of screening, and it was all that imaging, ordered for a completely different problem, that surfaced this. This kind of cancer rarely announces itself early. It is usually found at stage 3 or 4, when it could be terminal. If those gallbladder attacks didn’t repeat, no one would have been looking. The same disease, in the same body, discovered a little later, and I would be writing a very different story.

If you have to hear the word cancer, stage 1 is the version of the sentence you want to hear. I’ll be honest. When I heard it that way, what I felt was relief. The months ahead will bring few more tests, appointments, and a surgery that will take an organ with it. None of that is trivial. But it beats the alternative. It’s too easy to regret being too late to do anything.

For now, I only want to say two things.

The first is that I’m a little confused, in denial, still making sense of it, but okay. Part of the denial is that stage 1 changes sometimes nothing. People who are working with me 12+ hours a day don’t even understand how it is possible. I feel healthy. And that’s exactly how this disease kills. You feel fine, so no one goes looking until it’s too late. Days like this remind you how fragile we all are. There is still so much to this in this lifetime, and I want to be around for all of it. Which means I have to start taking better care of myself.

The second is that I have suffered a lot lately. I’m glad this chapter is finally coming to an end. Health is easy to ignore. That’s a lesson I shouldn’t forget.

This year may cost me a second organ. That’s a traumatic sentence to write, let alone live through. I’m writing it here so I only have to say it once. There will be times I will have to focus on myself and may need to hide. I’m stressed and somewhat fatigued, and whatever energy I have left needs to go toward getting better. I’ve lost two great coworkers to cancer, both around my age. When it happened, it felt so hard to believe. It felt like none of it were real. They both had everything in life, and lost it all to cancer in the span of months. When it comes that close, it’s hard to ignore.