Post Surgery

Cancer: Chapter One is over.

In this chapter, we survived the bewilderment of diagnosis, the horrors of radiation, the first 3-month scan to check for metastasis (none!) and the final surgery.  Check. Check. Check. Complete.

After surgery on Monday, our mothers proclaimed their joy and relief. "Cancer free!!" They shared with friends and family, "Thank Heavenly Father, Matt is disease-free!!"

Yet Matt and I didn't feel relieved. Shouldn't we be celebrating with gusto? This surgery finally removed the remaining microscopic cancer cells from his rear. We talked about it in the hospital room. We still felt worried. We still awaited the final pathology report. Matt worried about what else the doctor might find there.

We realize that this is only the beginning. This is only Chapter One. There are likely more chapters in this epic saga called "Life With Sarcoma."

We've learned a lot about cancer over the last several weeks. We've read a lot of people's experiences with sarcoma on social media. We've read scientific studies. We've read about holistic approaches to healing cancer. The truth of the matter is that everyone has cancer cells in their bodies. But our immune system catches and kills them before they grow into tumors. For some complex and unclear reason, Matt's body was unable to beat these cancer cells itself. It's our responsibility now to nourish his body back to health so that it will be whole and strong and well enough to fight the disease on its own.

The best book I have read on the subject thus far is "Staying Alive" by Brenda Hunter, Ph.D. The name of the book is not only one of my favorite disco dancing songs, but also our next goal for Matt! Dr. Hunter is a breast cancer survivor who so accurately describes the diagnosis experience and the real emotions of cancer that truth jumps off each page in the simplest of sentences.

"Against my will and to my absolute horror, I was entering a new land filled with eerie shadows, images of death, and dire pronouncements delivered by doctors I did not know and had never wanted to meet. A territory where I had neither a map nor a guide. A place I had no guarantee of leaving alive. The Cancer Zone." p. 4

"As I lay on the gurney waiting to be wheeled up to surgery, I wanted to jump up, rip off the surgical gown, and run. Run as fast as I could. Anywhere. Away from the hospital and my life. Away from me-from the body that had, after years of excellent health, betrayed me." p. 6

"Conventional medicine's 'cut, poison, and burn' approach to cancer just didn't make sense to me. Why take a sick body with a depressed immune system and subject it to a treatment protocol that might damage vital organs and cause secondary cancers? Frankly, the 'cure' sounded barbaric. While I knew that doing nothing was not an option, the treatment protocols I had heard so far gave me little confidence. I longed for a treatment plan that would end the abnormal proliferation of cancer cells, strengthen my immune system, and give me a fighting chance for survival. Did such a plan even exist?" p. 8

"My goal was not to deny the severity of my illness but to combat it on all fronts: the physical (which was all the doctors had discussed so far), the psychological, and the spiritual." p. 9

"I longed for a perspective that would not only give me hope that I could recover my health but would address the causes of the physiological breakdown in the first place." p. 17

"I realized that cancer is more than a wake-up call; it is the body's last plaintive cry for help. The tumor is saying, 'Change or die.'" p. 19

This last quote really struck me. Substantive changes were in order or else Matt would die from this epithelioid sarcoma. As I read this book, I shouted inside, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Dr. Hunter has done all of the research I've been looking for with regards to a natural approach to healing cancer. She discusses the significance of a vegan diet. Meat and dairy and junk food are toxic! She talks about flooding the body several times daily with nourishing and easily absorbable vitamins from fresh vegetable juice. We bought a powerful juicer! She discusses the importance of detoxification, stress reduction, taking care of yourself when you're used to taking care of everyone else, daily exercise, time spent outdoors, and more. The stories of cancer patients are inspirational but most important, this book gives me something that the oncologists certainly don't offer: HOPE.

I feel this is the path for Matt so strongly that I've been reading it aloud to him every opportunity I find to get him on board and to see if he desires to make these changes himself. We're about halfway through it and his impression thus far is, "Overall it sounds good."

Yesterday Matt came out of the bedroom from a late afternoon nap with the surprising news that he had heard from Kim, Dr. Rosenthal's nurse practitioner. She had the final pathology report results already from the tissue they removed on Monday. There were clear margins and basically, everything was clear. No cancer.

It didn't really settle with me at that point, maybe because I had to make dinner and Maggie was crying and there was so much kid noise. But that evening I felt melancholy. I must be tired still, I thought to myself. As we climbed into bed together I asked him, "Are you relieved?" And he said, finally, "Yes." "I am too. And I kinda just want to cry."

Chapter One is finally over.