I have spent several years safe and secure where my only fear is cars turning right without looking for pedestrians and bicyclists on the sidewalks. I’ve been comfortable and everything is more or less okay and what constitutes problems were so trivial. I sometimes had to reach for issues just to be able to complain.
Now I am in complete terror. I’m talking about shaking, sweating, stomach doing cartwheels on meth terror. In three days I go into surgery to have my guts pulled out and placed to the side, cancer cut out and guts put back the way they found it. The good news is that I’ll no longer have cancer, but I will be in pain and unable to live a normal life for about two months.
This is if nothing goes wrong, but what does my head do? It thinks about all the things that could go possibly wrong. They had to tell me all the things that could happen so I would sign the release form. I think about living with all of those outcomes; plus I think about stuff they didn’t go over.
I’m a huge David Cronenberg fan, and all of his movies show the horror of body and body functions. I can’t help but to think about some of the more gruesome scenes in his movies where the body explodes slimy goop everywhere.
Death is always a side effect of surgery. Death is final. I was talking to some people last night that I wouldn’t see again before I go under and I kept thinking I didn’t say goodbye well enough.
Death is fine if I don’t have to have some of these other side effects. Living the rest of my life in discomfort and pain makes me wonder if it was worth getting the cancer out. Taking the chances of permanent damage to prolong my life sounds like a gamble. I’ve not bet on sports with better odds.
More than any other regret I have is not growing up faster. I’m still a kid I feel. I still feel like someone who has so much to understand about the world. I really haven’t known the real me for very long.
I’ve fallen in love with the woman of my dreams and everyday I feel butterflies in my stomach when I think about her. I’m just getting to know the amazing woman that she is and the amazing relationship that we have. We have gone through more in two years than most relationships go through in a lifetime and we are stronger now than ever.
I want more time with her. We are just realizing the full potential of our partnership. We are just getting to know how to make each other truly happy and how to be each other’s rock. I feel that if I’m maimed, then I can’t be the rock she deserves.
What really scares me is the pain. I’m a total wimp now. I will have to rely on pain medicine to keep me sane. I took my body for granted and now I won’t be able to depend on it for a while and it may never be able to be used like I used to use it again.
I’m scared of the pain meds. I don’t want to lose to them and become hooked. I have watched a lot of people I care about lose and some died. I bring this up to people in 12-step programs and they tell me I can do it, but that is the opposite of what a 12-step program suggests. If I could ‘do it’, I wouldn’t need a 12-step program, nor would I fear pain meds, and I would just ‘do it’. Stronger people than I couldn’t ‘do it’.
Thanks to everyone that has reached out during this whole cancer fiasco. I appreciate the strong support and the outpouring of love I have received. I hope that I can walk away from this stronger and ready to join regular life again. I’ve felt like such an alien these last few months. I can’t wait to have cancer be in past tense.
I hope I’ll be able to write something soon after my surgery, but I think that is what scares me the most is I have no idea what I’ll be like afterwards. I don’t really know what I will and won’t be able to do. The unknown and waiting for this day to come is what has been terrifying. I just have to find out as it is happening and I don’t like that.
Someday I will be bitching about your Facebook posts and people riding their bikes on the sidewalks again and this will all be a terrible memory.
Don’t get cancer.
I love you, Dave. I’m reading your words and feeling nothing but love and optimism for you! You will do great in surgery and you will pull through like a champ! Believe in yourself and your connection to what you love. It might give you a little extra strength when you need it most.
Unsolicited words from a guy who doesn’t have cancer, sitting in Mason City, Iowa.
Scott is right. You are a champ! With your eyes wide open. I’m holding out hope.
We love you Dave. When I have talked to you over the years you have helped me find hope by embracing the absurdity of life: Like Prius drivers who throw lit cigarettes out the window.
You are ao loved! Hang in there fisher!
Dave trust your higher power, I spent 10 days at Emanuel Hospital a few years back after I crashed hard on my Mt Bike. Don’t remember the crash, ambulance ride to the hospital or the first 5 days I was there. They tell me I was in a lot of pain and they had me full of morphine, demeral and who knows what else. Nurses hated me because every time they came to check on me I would start screaming at them to quit giving me drugs because I’m a recovering addict, my wife told me this. I was amazed that I got through it and never even had a craving afterwards, have had several surgery since same thing, I just trust my higher power to keep me safe and do a lot of praying. Keep up the good fight my friend!!
When you said “guts pulled out and placed to the side,” it made me think of my 2 emergency C-sections. The first one, my husband said my guts were on the table. I was scared and didn’t think I was strong enough, but the baby had to come out somehow. Once upon a time, I would have been the woman to die in childbirth. They have come a long way with Cancer too. Yes, it’s terrible..my former sister in law is having a double mastectomy next month (and her sister and mother lost a breast a piece) but the chance of you going on to live a normal life is much higher than it used to be. I know that sounds lame coming from someone who hasn’t experienced it herself, but I could someday. You didn’t choose this but you are doing the best you can with it. You are staying in love, in recovery, and grabbing onto life with all the strength you can muster. I’ve become a big fan. Hope to see you in the rooms so I can give you a big hug for being a badass.