The Road to Recovery
‘You wanna move mountains, go ahead
I think I’ll suffocate instead
A change of scenery won’t tame
The endless earthquakes in my head
So I’ll suffer through
A means to an end, it’s all I can do’
This will be my final post before I go into surgery on Friday. I would imagine that it will be at least a week before I post again, if not longer. I’ve been told that I will be on a high-dependency ward for the first few days. Once I am cleared from that ward, I will be moved to a more routine one for around a week. Of course, it all depends on what is done during the procedure, how well I recover and whether there are any complications along the way. If a Whipple procedure is possible, the impact will be much greater on my body than the NanoKnife.
As the dietician told me, the Whipple involves the surgical team creating 3 new joins in the digestive system. Hearing the phrase ‘new joins’ in relation to your digestive system is a little unnerving; I can’t say that it is an attractive prospect of surgery. The fact that the Whipple would probably be my best chance at getting rid of the cancer however, makes the concept of having new joins in my digestive system a very attractive thing indeed. Join me up, doc… that felt a little weird to type.
Cancer is always pulling you in a million directions. Your standard of life changes so much that you find yourself feeling grateful to be eligible for major surgery, strangely looking forward to potentially having your digestive system rearranged like a hamster run. Of course, the alternative, to not have an operation and allow the cancer to grow inside your body unabated, is most definitely not better. Imagine telling myself a year ago, “Hey Dan, in 12 months you’ll be eight months into treatment for stage 3 pancreatic cancer and looking forward to an operation,” I’d probably have replied with a laugh and a “Who would look forward to major surgery?” I also thought I was immune to things like cancer 12 months ago because nobody in my family has had it. I thought I was invincible so long as I was either training for an ultra-marathon, or actually running one. Turns out that running ultra-marathons doesn’t actually make you immune to cancer. It probably makes your body a little bit better at fighting it, though, so it was still worth something. Hopefully. I enjoyed it anyway so it was worth every second.
I say that I’m looking forward to surgery. I’m not. That probably isn’t a surprise. It would be short-sighted to not acknowledge what a privileged position I am in to be offered this opportunity, though. There are people that read this blog regularly who are not in the position I am in, some who have been definitively told they are inoperable. My surgeon told me that to the majority of oncologists/surgeons, I may have been deemed to be inoperable given the circumstances, but luckily I am with a forward-thinking and optimistic team who do see opportunity here. I am grateful for that, and thus, am looking forward to being afforded such an opportunity. Am I looking forward to going through it, though? Hell no. Am I looking forward to putting my family through it? Hell no. It isn’t good for anyone involved, but it has the potential to change everything.
With a Whipple procedure unlikely to be a possibility, it’ll probably be NanoKnife. Although that carries a smaller recovery time, it still requires the surgeon to cut into my abdomen and play around with the organs there. Clamping this, cutting that; the scene doesn’t inspire a lot of enthusiasm in my brain. Then I remember that one of the things being cut is the tumour itself, and all of a sudden I get all evil and masochistic. “Do your worst, surgeon! Make him pay!” I feel like rubbing my hands together and snarling as I grin, staring at my own stomach. I’d only be cursing my own body, though, and I will eventually pay a price for whatever is done to the tumour. Whether that price is recovering from a successful removal, or recovering from electric pulses being applied to my pancreas, is yet to be seen. Either way, I’m sure it is going to suck at least a little bit in the days, weeks and possibly months afterwards.
I don’t like the war analogy when talking about cancer, but it can be hard to ignore. It’s hard not to liken yourself to someone fighting against an enemy force, even though you feel like a bystander in that war the majority of the time. You attend appointments, anticipate scan results and cower whenever the hospital calls you, but you don’t do a lot else to contribute to the process. Your war is usually with yourself – keeping your head up, finding a way through the painful days and doing your best to sleep well at night. It’s a war of attrition, but the cancer doesn’t have a brain to disadvantage it. Your brain will do everything in its power to attack you. Mine has been telling me that my neck is swollen, that it’s got in my lymph nodes and that my abdomen hurts more than usual. Sometimes, I wonder who’s side it’s really on.
It doesn’t help ignore the war analogy when you find yourself packing your bag the night before, knowing you have a critical period ahead of you. Last night, I was packing my bag and responding to all the lovely messages I’ve been sent. The war analogy felt real. Now, as I write this, I sit in the car on the way to hospital. It’s mostly silent… anticipation hangs in the air. I get the feeling that people feel more anxious than they’re letting on; you can sense it as we sit listening to the music playing from the speakers. Everyone is a sitting duck in their own head.
Anna has the password to the blog’s Twitter account, so that’s probably the best place to find an update soon on how things have gone. Thank you to everyone for the support. I will get back to all of the blog comments once I’m feeling well enough post-surgery! Thank you for continuing to read and I hope I’ll be coming back with some positive things to say next time I’m writing.
Ebb and Flow 