I was diagnosed with Stage III Colorectal Cancer on October 2nd, 2017. Leading up to that date, I knew something was seriously wrong with my body. I had a feeling it was cancer, but you never really want to tell yourself, “Yeah, you’ve probably got cancer”. Prior to the diagnosis, I was experiencing some health problems, yet initially, I didn’t think much of them as the primary problems were fatigue and weight loss.
In the spring of 2017, I was finishing up an intensive Master’s program at San Diego State University. Not only was I a full time student, but I was also teaching full time at a high school, serving students considered to have moderate/severe disabilities. I would start my day around 5 AM, leaving to teach for the day, and then immediately making the 40 minute drive to SDSU to take classes until 9 PM. During this time, I was certainly, “Burning the wick at both ends”, attempting to complete both my MA and finish the school year strong at MHHS.
This was my routine 4 days a week, so when I started feeling fatigue, I simply chalked it up to having a heavy workload. Not only that, but the students I was teaching at the time were really pushing the envelope. I love all of my students, but there’s no doubt that some are trickier than others, requiring much more attention and intervention. At the time, I thought, “Just power through, buddy. If I can just get to summer time, I’ll be set. Done with MA, summer livin’, and this one is going to be a gem!”. The last big hurdle in the MA was completing my, “thesis”, and then it was smooth sailin’!
And that’s exactly what I did- I crushed the Thesis, graduated with a Master’s degree (coupled with several other certificates), and finished the school year at MHHS. Summer ‘17 was lookin’ good. I was living in a sweet condo (dubbed, “The Castle”), less than a mile from the ocean. I was hittin’ the beach daily with my roommate Z, and our “couch guy”- a friend of Z’s who was in a jam and needed a place to crash. We had a great thing goin, filled with beach time by day, cocktails at night, and repeat. We even spent about 10 days on the road, exploring California, venturing up to Kings Canyon, the Sequoia National Park, and back down the coast. We truly were California Dreamin’.
As I completed both schooling, I figured my energy levels would start to increase; however, they didn’t. I attempted to stay fit, completing, “prison workouts” (simple workouts- pushups, pull-ups, sit-ups, etc.), daily, yet finding I wasn’t making any gains. I would get through half a set and be gassed. Not only that, but I started losing weight. During graduate school, I weighed in around 145 lbs. By graduation, I dropped to 138 lbs. At the end of summer, I lost another 5 lbs and weighed 133 lbs. I had a feeling something was wrong with my body, but still didn’t consider cancer as the culprit.
It wasn’t until late summer (around August) that I knew something was seriously wrong. I was already experiencing heavy fatigue and weight loss. Soon, I started having an upset stomach and couldn’t eat much of anything. I found that after eating, I’d end up nauseous or vomiting. With that, I also noticed blood in my stool after taking a dump. These are all obvious red flags, so I immediately contacted my GP. He had me in the next week and ran some tests (some seriously invasive tests), and didn’t find anything. He scheduled a colonoscopy to make sure we covered all our bases; however, the colonoscopy wasn’t until the end of September (this might give you an idea as to our overloaded healthcare system).
Leading up to the scope, my symptoms continued getting worse as my body screamed for attention. I had even done some of my own research (research… simply typing into Google, haha) and all of my symptoms pointed to colorectal cancer. At the time, I was keeping my family out of the loop, except for my mother. She had visited me in August with Papa, and noticed that I wasn’t well. My mom checked in daily, making sure I was getting by and following up with my appointments. Eventually, the day of the scope came and it was time to get some results.
Colonoscopies get a bad rap, but they’re really not that bad. In fact, the worst part is drinking the goods the night before and spending the night on the can, flushing out the system. When conducting the actual scope, they front-load you with a serious cocktail, I equate it to “blacking out” from a night of heavy, heavy drinking. They wheel you in, you pass out, they do their business, and you’re waking up in a waiting room an hour later (in a pretty serious haze).
When conducting a colonoscopy, the doctor gets an immediate idea as to what’s going on. After the exam, when I was somewhat coherent again, the doctor came in and explained that she, “found a large mass in the colon. I wasn’t able to remove it, so I tattooed it, and it will need to be removed surgically. There’s a chance it’s benign, but also a good chance it’s a cancerous mass. We biopsied it and will know next week”. I vividly remember that convo, and knew at that point I just needed to get back to The Castle and rest up. I avoided my mom that day as I wasn’t ready to break the news yet, but in my own head, I knew the results would come back as cancerous.
The next day, I informed my mom about the mass. Naturally, she was pretty shook up, and although she didn’t admit it at the time, we were on the same page- it had to be cancer. Given my history, we just didn’t think it was a random, benign growth in my bowels. The mass, along with all the other side effects, clearly pointed to cancer. Those next few days were odd, I felt I was in a dream state, just going through the motions and waiting. Tom Petty said it best, “The Waiting is the hardest part”.
That following Monday, I was enjoying a cold beer at our local spot, Oside Bar and Grill (aka HQ), when I received a call from Kaiser. I answered the call, expecting it to be Dr. M (colonoscopy doctor), and sure enough, it was her. She explained that the biopsy came back, and it was indeed a cancerous mass. Stage III Adenocarcinoma of the colon/rectum. She had also biopsied some lymph nodes which came back as cancerous. Dr. M referred me to an oncologist, and the ball started rolling. I relayed the news to my mom, and later that week informed the rest of my family.
I wasn’t as shell shocked as the rest of the family, I think because I knew internally I was in a bad way. The hardest part was sharing that news with my sisters, old man, friends, family, and coworkers. Getting a diagnosis such as cancer is intimidating, but I thought, “Shit, you’ve been here before, there’s no reason you can’t get by this again”. Over the next few days, I had about half a dozen appointments scheduled with different doctors and specialists to develop an attack plan. The waiting was over, and it was time to move forward to treat this disease.
Oceanside, CA. 2016.
