Walter's battle against cancer

Hope & Faith

Hope is a four letter word that has been very elusive. I've come to the realization that a cancer diagnosis means a life changing event that brings into stark reality of the finiteness of life. The unpredictability of a relapse, whether it will be treatable/curable and how fast it can grow, brings home how much life should be valued. Over the last few weeks, I've lost and regained hope a few times. I know my situation could have been much worse, I could have caught my cancer so late such that it had metastasized throughout my body with mere weeks or months to live.

I think about my eldest son, and sometimes I see hope. If I could be like him, to be living almost 15 years later, even though he was diagnosed with stage 4s Neuroblastoma with four relapses, would be amazing (but minus all those relapses). The pain and suffering scare me, but I don't have much of a choice. Some days/nights are good ones, and others days/nights not so good.

I continue to heal from my radiation treatment and my pain levels are decreasing such that the pain is manageable. I have a CT scan in September to see how well the tumor responded to the radiation treatment, and to ensure nothing else grew in other parts of my body in the meantime. My surgery date has also been set, in October, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm scared and afraid. I've decided I'm not going with a second opinion and will be opting for an abdominoperineal resection of the rectum or APR. My entire rectum will be removed and I will have a permanent colostomy bag. Patients are generally in the hospital for 4 to 7 days and then it takes another 3 weeks to recover at home. Once my surgery is complete, the next and final stage is wrap-up chemo, and I suspect I would have used up all of my short-term disability by then (something to worry about a different day).