My Cancer History
It was the Ides of March in 2012 when my cancer journey began. A biopsy had revealed an anal condyloma. In plain English, I had cancer. The words hit like lightning, and resonate like thunder in the mind in a way I had only felt once before: on Pearl Harbor Day in 1992 when I was told I was HIV positive.
The first thing I did was I went to the Saloon and got shit-faced, which wasn’t the best idea, I know, but what the fuck? It’s okay to fall apart at a time like this… as long as I eventually stand back up and pull myself back together, like Scarlett O’Hara at the end of the first reel of Gone With the Wind. (“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”)
Anal cancer is a pain in the ass—literally. It’s the cancer Farrah Fawcett died of. But it’s also easy to treat when caught in time. The cancer I had was pretty easily cured by a couple rounds of chemo with 5-Fluorouracil and Mytomycin. It also involved a month of showing up once a day to get my butt zapped with radiation. I was able to listen to playlists on my MP3 player while the zapped my bottom and gave me some burn cream to apply internally. (Believe me when I say that you don’t know the agony of a sunburn until you’ve had one inside your butthole. I speak from experience.)
Aside from “buttburn,” the treatment went well, and the cancer was driven back. They’d still have to do a high-resolution anoscopy once a year to make sure the cancer hadn't returned, but all indications was that it was in remission. On the one year anniversary of my remission, they gave me a certificate for graduating from the program. The magic had worked… but it came with a catch. More on that later.
I only needed to miss one concert to treat my anal cancer, and I was back on the risers for the Pride concert that year. I was feeling pretty good about myself: I had kicked cancer’s butt when it took a bite out of mine. I made the other guy make worse. I even went to DisneyWorld that summer, courtesy of a generous gift from my roommate’s dad. (Thanks, Chuck!)
In the fall I returned to the Chorus to start working on the holiday show. I was coming along with the music and was all set to take the risers in December, except that right after Thanksgiving, I came down with what I thought was a flu. (COVID was not a thing yet.) I treated it with TheraFlu and rest, and missed a couple of rehearsals. It was during one rehearsal that I collapsed in the kitchen while Jim was rehearsing. I took a lyric from one of the songs we were singing and fell on my knees, then over on my side. Ouch. It was a real-life “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” moment. As I recall, it took me half an hour, maybe an hour, to pull myself up, all the while screaming for help that never came. (My neighbor must not have been home, as he usually complains about me being too loud.) It was a couple of weeks still before Jim finally implored me to be seen in urgent care, where they saw right away what was wrong. But it took a few biopsies and PET scans to conform the diagnosis before they would tell me: it was Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Hodgkin’s wasn’t as easy to treat. It would involve a year of chemotherapy, reporting twice a week to be infused with four different drugs—Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine, and Dacarbazine. I can remember that because they had an acronym for it: ABVD. Some of these drugs took hours to infuse. Others were quick. One, the nurse had to sit there patiently and inject a little bit a time into my access port. That stuff looked like Hawaiian Punch.
This chemo was nasty shit. This time, I did lose my hair. Not all at once, mind you, but in clumps and patches that looked so awful that I had to take my clippers and finish the job. I even bought one of those head-shaver thingies. I was also losing weight, which was important because they were supposed to calibrate my dosage based on my body weight, but they weren’t doing it. (Oops.) As a result, I wasted away to 89½ pounds. (40.5 kg) That was when I ended up in the hospital for a week. I was in pretty bad shape. At least my hospital room window gave me a great view of the “blood moon” lunar eclipse I thought I was going to miss. It was through these times that my fellow Chorus members really supported me. They smuggled in McDonald’s when I got sick of cafeteria swill. One day the whole Chorus office staff came to visit me over their lunch hour. That meant the universe to me.
It was a tough battle finding my way back that time. My oncologist (just one of an army of ologists trying to kill me) scaled back my ABVD treatment by taking out the Bleomycin, which tends to be the most problematic. So I guess it became ABVD, though she called it “ABVD lite.”
I finished my chemotherapy for lymphoma on September 30, 2014. I remember that date so precisely that I made a fancy poster commemorating the event and had my picture taken with it that I shared on social media. (A cancer survivor’s group) It’s hanging above my bed now. By that time I was singing in the chorus again, and by the time we started working on the Spring concert, my hair had grown back. Like a local television news personality, I’m “2 for 2.” Happily ever after, right? Not so fast.
Which brings us to…
The Present
Although my anal cancer was cured, I still have to have regular high-res anoscopy to check for possible recurrence. I hate these damned procedures because one, they’re a bit painful, especially since I have trouble assuming the positions with my hip necrosis; and two, it seems every time I get one of them, it comes back with bad news.
Mind you, all of this is taking place where I can’t see because I’m not a Republican, but the anoscopy found suspicious legions surrounding the anal verge and biopsied some of them. She couldn’t do a very deep biopsy, because that would involve excruciating pain and lots of bleeding, so she did what she could. The biopsies she took came back showing high-grade neoplasia. That’s medicalese for “pre-cancer.” It’s not cancer… yet… but she couldn’t look very far, like I said, without making a big mess. So she referred me to a colorectal surgeon who makes a living dealing with assholes all day. (At least they’re usually anesthetized at the other end.) This was pretty much an all-day appointment. First I met with the surgeon and the anesthetist, who smiled when I called him a “gas passer.” (It’s a joke from early seasons of M*A*S*H.) They prepped me for surgery and wheeled me into the operating room, which is where the midazolam kicked in and I seemed to cease to exist. I sensed no passage of time before I opened my eyes and looked around, sensing a change in my surroundings. The nurse smiled down at me and told me, “We’re done.”
That’s what I love about general anesthesia. You blink and it’s over.
So the surgeon collected biopsies from eight sites and sent them for analysis. The results should take 2-3 business days, so probably early next week. If it weren’t for the drugs I’m on, I’d probably be up all night worrying. There are three possible outcomes here: good news, bad news, and worse news.
Good News
The news could be good. The pre-cancerous legions could be just that: pre-cancerous lesions that can be dealt with before they become cancer, which is pretty easy to do with a little more surgery that’s over in a blink. They might even be able to do it with a laser or liquid nitrogen. Then again, it could be…
Bad News
My original cancer might have come back, and I’ve been told that this particular cancer has a habit of coming back. (Now they tell me?!) That would be bad news because the bad news would also be…
Worse News
Remember when I said that the magic came with a catch? Here’s where it comes in. The regimen of chemo and radiation worked, but they can only do it once. Seems the body can only handle so many rems before it reaches a lethal dosage, and I’ve reached my limits. That means a colostomy. I hate the idea. I hate the idea of having my colon removed and pooping into a bag for the rest of my life. Most of all, I hate the idea of shopping for shoes to match that bag.
… or Maybe There’s Hope?
Maybe I can seek a second opinion? Maybe M.D. Anderson Cancer Center or Cancer Treatment Centers of America can find some Hail Mary experimental programs I can look into? Bing A.I. had some suggestions for clinical trials I could look into. I’ll be discussing these with my doctor in a telemedicine visit on Monday. (My doctor, not my surgeon. My surgeon gets paid per procedure, so he will always suggest the surgical route.)
It’s not time to think about any of this yet, but it will be soon. As soon as those biopsy results come back: eight tickets to the Grim Reaper’s lottery. And there’s no way of knowing the odds.
Wish me luck, because it’s the only hope I’ve got, because my usual support system is starting to disintegrate….
TO BE CONTINUED...