Tag: cancer

October 5, 2021 / Personal

I’m sitting here in a hospital room watching my Michelle sleep as she recovers from surgery. I wrote about her cancer here and here. While I watch her sleep, and help her sit up, and order her meals, and watch the hospital’s medical staff come and go and do their work, I’m thinking about what’s most important to me right now. I think it’s courage. I’m not going to pretend that Michelle has more courage than anyone else. Every one of us has to find the courage inside to deal with life’s challenges and disappointments which catch us by surprise at any point in time. The ancient boy shepherd, David, killed both a lion and a bear while protecting his sheep. Those events led him to enough courage to accept Goliath’s challenge and win.But in reality, it may have taken more relative courage for a younger David just to get through his first night alone with his father’s sheep. I once drove through sheep grazing country in the Wasatch Mountains in central Utah while my co-worker told me about his grandfather and grandfather’s brother who tended sheep all summer in that same region — on their own at 8…

March 17, 2021 / Personal

64-72% That’s the prognosis for stage three colorectal cancer. Meaning that for a female of my wife’s age and with her diagnosis, about 64-72% of patients remain alive five years after surgery. The eight-point range allows for various other health and environmental factors. 64-72% is so clinical. But if it’s your loved one who dies, the prognosis goes to zero and statistics can go to hell. Last year I wrote about one of Michelle’s bad days. And now we know. We have the news just before her 49th birthday and just before our 29th wedding anniversary. We also have a plan of action: We have a gastroenterologist, a surgeon, a radiation oncologist, and a chemotherapy oncologist, who concur — and who all coordinate for the best possible outcome … And I’m now making plans for a combined 50th birthday / 30th anniversary getaway. Stage 3 is better than Stage 4. 64-72% is better than 50%. I’ll take what I can get right now, and we’ll cross every bridge together because she won’t be fighting cancer alone. [Article 0006 of Samuel Said]