I have had plenty of minor medical issues in my life, like loads of stitches and appendicitis, but I rarely get sick. The last few months, though, I have been quite sick. The details are not terribly important here, but suffice to say that I knew something was askew inside of me. This all culminated in me scheduling a full colonoscopy and upper GI test last Friday, the 8th of May.

Upon coming out of the short procedure, I was informed that there was a lemon-sized tumor inside my colon. It was not yet known if this tumor was cancer or not, but I was told that it had nearly completely blocked the colon. This meant surgery right away. I went home and packed a bag, grabbed a couple of books (my Bible and Harry Potter) and set off to admit myself to the hospital.

Friday night I was told the biopsy had come back as cancer. Surgery would be Saturday morning. The pain in my abdomen was increasing by the moment, but that was a nice time for Mandy to climb into my hospital bed and hug me for a bit. By this time, family and friends had been told; my mother was flying in and our friends were taking care of our kids. I felt a great sense of peace.

Saturday morning came after a restless night. I was not really nervous about surgery itself, but I do remember wondering, as I was wheeled along the hallways, what kind of light I would see when I awoke: fluorescent, hospital lighting or something much more resplendent?

The results of the surgery were the removal of about two feet of my colon and the removal of fifteen lymph nodes in the surrounding area. Unfortunately, more cancer could be seen. At least two spots are still present on my liver, meaning the cancer is fairly aggressive at spreading. The pathology reports have shown that only six of the fifteen lymph nodes have cancer, which is good. But more work must be done.

The current status is a three stage plan. Stage one is to heal completely from the surgery. I am still in the hospital and will be for a few more days. Then I will be at home completely recuperating from the surgery and getting healthy again. Stage two is to aggressively attack my body with chemotherapy. Because of my age (32), I can probably withstand more aggressive treatments and so that is what I will get. Stage two, by the way will not begin until early to mid June. Stage three is to then deal with the cancer we know about on my liver — and any other that we may find.

I hope to give updates through my blog. I have simply been overwhelmed with the voicemails, emails and texts and I cannot respond to them all. I cannot express in words how thankful I am for all the people all over the world who have contacted us. My main concern is the well-being of my family and they are being tended to excellently. God is truly good. I am most grateful for my NewSpring Family and my parents who have been here by my side this week. I hope that in the coming weeks I will have the energy to talk to more of you. I promise to let you all know what I know here on the blog first.

Some have asked if we need anything and we really don’t. God is providing for everything that we need. One of my favorite people in the world brought me a Target gift card earlier this week and that seems like a great gift. If you know me, you know I think flowers are stupid and cards are forgettable. Gift cards, though, make more sense. Of course I will give said gift card to Mandy and she will probably buy toilet paper or detergent with it. So if you must buy me something, make it a gift card to Target or Sam’s Club.

I am working on a post the reflects some of my thoughts on having cancer — what does that mean for me when this is all over with? I also wrote a short poem that I am sure you will love. So — stay tuned to the blog for more. I love you all!

Tags: Cancer

This entry was posted by zac on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 8:36 am and is filed under Cancer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.