Third Time Unlucky

I'm not feeling very lucky right now.  I have been diagnosed with cancer for the third time: bowel cancer for this round. I head into surgery on Friday and then the tough road to recovery begins.

A diagnosis like this is a huge kick in the guts. It changes your life instantly and the lives of those close to you. It changes who you think you are, how others see you. It's made me scared and sad and I cannot stop thinking about my mortality. How would I wrap up my life if I had to? What can I do to smooth the path forward? This time I have teenagers so there are four people in the direct line of fire. How do I manage that?

I am trying to be positive. At this stage I am thinking of the diagnosis as the low point. A cancer journey is a series of steps and, as long as each step goes up, I will eventually reach higher ground again.

I honestly felt quite relieved when the diagnosis came because I had been so sick for months. It was good to have something to blame, something to fight, a way forward. The first step up. My wife felt entirely different. I called her from the hospital as soon as I got the news. She was minutes away and, by the time she reached me in an empty day surgery ward as 9pm, she was angry at the universe. Penni tried her best not to punch walls and kick furniture in the hospital which she so could have done because the place was deserted apart from the one nurse. Instead she let fly with the expletives. Being angry is OK. Being sad is OK. But there is a job to do and I don't have time for either.

We caught the tumour early and so the prognosis for survival is good. The second step up. But just surviving isn't really the goal. I bounced back pretty well from cancer as a kid but round two - oesophageal cancer - really took its toll. With survival likely although never guaranteed, my thoughts turn to quality of life. It was hard to listen to the surgeon explain the operation. It seems I will lose yet another body part. The human body is carefully engineered to have two legs, an oesophagus and a rectum. They all have a role to play and, although you can live without all three, it really is not advisable. That felt like a step down.

The next step is surgery. I'm banking on that being a big step up. The recovery will be tough, even with the best outcome. But I've done it before. Twice. I know it gets better. I know I can heal. I know I can not only survive but also get back to doing at least some of the things I love: rollerblading, cycling, skiing, living. I'm looking forward to reaching that top step and walking on level ground, even if it's only some days.

But the first step after hearing the crappy news and communicating it to our kids from the car in a dark alley behind the hospital in Sydney was ice cream. I just wanted to go and eat my favourite ice cream. So that's what Penni and I did because three separate cancer diagnoses before 50 is a lot to digest but ice cream goes down super easy.