With any cancer diagnosis, you get an unspoken lifetime membership to the Cancer Club. It has some perks, such as frequent blood checks and early access to all the great screens, such as mammograms, ultrasounds, and colonoscopies. Plus, if anything in your system has gone awry, you get at least 2 doctors checking you up and down. The downside…cancer. It’s always on the brain, even after years in remission. You learn to live with it, like a weird mole on your face that you have no choice but to accept (by the way, if you have a weird mole on your face, you should probably get that checked).
My chemo anniversary is a time to celebrate, and yet for some reason it has become a Friday the 13th thing for me. I love to celebrate it and keep it as a reminder to be thankful for second chances. But when I look back, this time of year is fucking bananas in this house. In 2020, my first remission anniversary, Covid was rearing its ugly head, and soon we were all locked up in our homes. 2021 was still rough, with many public activities still masked and anxiety-ridden or worse, virtual. I couldn’t even hug anyone without me hearing my oncologist’s voice in my head telling me to be cautious. 2022 seemed more promising, with Covid becoming slightly less of a worry. So of course in true Ely fashion, I tore my rotator cuff, had adenomas in my breast and funky looking lymph nodes that had to be biopsied, and I randomly passed out in what could have been a seizure or heart issue; that all happened in the month of February. I spent all of February and March of that year getting scans, EEGs, and cardiac workups. Everything was clear, other than my torn rotator cuff, thank goodness. But it was just a kick in the balls, with the universe being like, “Be thankful because you never know.” Ok, universe, a little less dramatic next time please.
Here we are now in 2023, and I intended on breaking this strange vibe around my anniversary. Much to my chagrin, bad juju still surrounds this time of year. I recently found a few cysts in my breast, which are luckily benign, but I will be getting an MRI in a few weeks to check both ladies out more thoroughly. AND I had my first colonoscopy. My dudes, it is the absolute worst, and this is coming from a person who underwent 8 months of chemo. Whoever coined the phrase, “Shit hit the fan” was definitely prepping for a colonoscopy, and it was probably a literal statement.
Jamie had a colonoscopy last year, so I knew it was an arduous event. When I told him that I scheduled one this year and needed his help, he said cool; I didn’t realize he meant, “Cool, as long as it’s not me.” Turns out he was traveling for work that whole week, and left his poor children in my care when I’d be hangry from being on a liquid diet for 24 hours before the procedure. When it was time to take the prep, I had already sent both kids out to their practices, Jamie was still not home, and the house was eerily quiet. I drank the concoction as directed, and was convinced that only a person working on Satan’s behalf could have made such a potion. It was so terribly sweet and salty that I didn’t know if I liked it or wanted to vomit. An hour later, my asshole decided it wanted to vomit. At one point a friend asked how I was doing, and I told her I didn’t know if I was shitting or pissing. I couldn’t be more than 15 feet away from the bathroom all night. At the peak of Satan’s tricks, my phone started ringing. It was Evan’s basketball coach. I didn’t want to answer the phone because she’d know I was in the bathroom from the echo (and other stuff). I didn’t answer. She called 2 more times. I had about 5 minutes in me to call her back before I had to jump back on the toilet. She wanted to make sure someone was picking Evan up from practice. I was saying a silent prayer that this woman was not hyperverbal, and thankfully she wasn’t; she just wanted to make sure Evan was going to have a ride home. 3 minutes left. I called my in-laws to make sure they would be getting him from practice. 1 minute left. My sister-in-law asked if I was okay, and I said, “I’m shitting my fucking brains out! Gotta go!” She said, “Oooh…ok, well godspeed!” Sure as shit, God sped me back to the bathroom just in time.
By the time Jamie and the kids came home, I was spent. And I still had a second round of prep to take at midnight. I was back and forth all night to the bathroom. I was jealous of how soundly Jamie slept, as I expelled demons from my colon that were in there from 20 years ago. At most, I got 1.5 hours of sleep that night. I just knew my colon was going to be super photogenic for this colonoscopy, squeaky clean.
The following morning, I was so excited to have the procedure done, just so I could be put to sleep for a few hours. Apparently, according to social media, it was a beautiful morning with a breathtaking sunrise. Yeah I don’t remember any of that, I just remember praying that Jamie didn’t hit any potholes on the way to the hospital, while I repeated in my head, “Please don’t shit the car, please don’t shit the car…” I was tired, hangry, and literally butthurt.
They got me into the procedure room pretty quickly before any “Code Browns” could occur, promising I would sleep soundly. I heard them say I needed a pediatric scope. When I looked at what they brought in, I remember thinking there was no way that thing could fit in a child or small adult without tearing up someone’s insides. I thought to myself, “Please, may the gods of lube be ever so generous and shine upon me.” There was no pre-procedure foreplay or romancing by the staff, I was simply put on my side and was knocked out. And then it was over.
When I came to, I was annoyed because I wanted to sleep for 12 more hours. The doctor spoke to me and told me he found just one polyp. I’m sure I said some words to him, but my face was saying, “Dude, just give me some food and water.” I ate the most delicious cookie of my life, which was just a hospital cookie that I could probably get at the dollar store, but it was solid and not gatorade, so it was perfection. Jamie took me home, and since I wasn’t allowed to drive for the rest of the day, I finally had a day off. Who would have thought that in order to have a day of rest, I had to schedule a colonoscopy for it. Momlife at its finest.
The results came back in a few days, and the polyp they found was benign. But when they tell you that you need to schedule this procedure in another 5 years instead of 10 because polyps are precancerous, you are reminded yet again of that Cancer Club you belong to. It’s a bummer, but hey, it’s not cancer. In fact, everything that seems to pop up around my cancerversary ends up not being cancer. So this bad juju is actually good juju because my body and mind keep fighting. And every year for the past 4 years, I’ve been winning.
I’m a proud member of the Cancer Club, and when the next new thing comes my way, I’ll be like, “Nope, not today, Satan.”
The Mundame 