2020 - The Year That Keeps on Giving

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Heretofore, this blog has been about my travel adventures with my partner Doug. Beginning with this piece, however, I will be blogging about a different sort of adventure -- fighting cancer, As Seen By Susan. From all that I have read, it will be an adventure of a lifetime, but not in the fun sort of way. In the end, I hope to be able to go back to blogging about far away places and trips we have scheduled for 2021 including Egypt, Jordan and Alexandria. Stay tuned.

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Looking back, I didn't think much about it at the time that I was sick on New Year's Eve and January 1 of this year. I just knew that I was disappointed to miss our tour of the ghats along the Ganges in Varanasi that was supposed to be a highlight of our trip to India. But I recovered, and we finished our Heart of India tour as well as our five-day extension trip to the state of Kerala in southern India.  Then we began our journey home in the wee hours of January 7, arriving back in Walla Walla by mid afternoon on January 8, very tired and with a lingering cough and an eye irritation, but home. 

By February rumblings of the Coronavirus had me wondering if I my cough was symptomatic of something more serious, but with no fever or other symptoms, the doctors at Urgent Care didn't seem concerned. And as my  symptoms abated, COVID-19 arrived in the states and with it the new normal of stay-at-home orders, masking, self-isolation, and quarantine.  

It was also during the first few months of isolation that I had my follow up appointment with my surgeon who had performed my hemorrhoidectomy the previous fall. At that time, she had removed and had biopsied a lesion that was found during a prior colonoscopy. The pathology report came back as negative for cancer, which was a relief. However, at my six-month checkup she must have seen something suspicious, as she referred me to a colo-rectal specialist in Spokane. 

Covid-19 restrictions plus Doug's rescheduled hip replacement surgery in June put my anaoscopy procedure off until August 13. And then ten days later I received the results: I have anal cancer. 

The diagnosis took me by surprise. I have always thought of myself as "healthy and husky," just as my childhood pediatrician Dr. Mason had described me after one of my many summer camp physicals. Also, there is no history of cancer in my family, and I have led a mostly healthy life being a non-smoker and a light drinker. 

Nevertheless, I have cancer. How I got it is now not as important as how I am going to get rid of it. Since I don't see my new doctors at the Cancer Center here in Walla walla until mid-September, I've been busy reading and developing my background knowledge of the disease and its treatment. Believe me, it's not for the faint of heart. But as a result of my research, I am also putting together my support team including a nutritionist, a social worker/counselor, and my patient advocate who can ask questions and take notes when my brain might be otherwise bogged down in the emotion and physical distress of fighting this disease. 

Plus there's my partner Doug, who will be my closest emotional support person. I've been at his side for several health events, so I guess now it's his turn. 

So it seems 2020 just keeps on giving. As Covid-19 keeps us trapped inside our homes, fires rage across the west, and hurricanes spin off the oceans into the coastal cities and across neighboring states; as social and racial injustice is protested in small towns such as Walla Walla and big cities like Portland, Seattle, Washington D.C. and others across our country;  as students and teachers return to school in a variety of ways never experienced before; and as our country fights to preserve our democracy and its Constitution, I will begin the battle of my life.

2020, you may have thrown me a curve ball, but I am not out yet. In fact, I have just begun to fight.