Update: I head into Saint Paul's Hospital tomorrow morning at 730 for a surgery time of 930. Tina will send out an update by email once I am in recovery.
Tomorrow morning I will subject myself to today's wizards of biology for them to remove an organ that has been both the biggest risk to my life and been a vehicle through which I have taught myself to live a much more nourishing life. So my guess is the first part makes sense to you; surgeons are today's wizards and my colon, complete with all of its polyps, is a ticking colon cancer time bomb.
But if you said the piece about my colon being a vehicle through which I have taught myself to live a more nourishing life sounded like bullocks I would understand. After all the colon is the last stop in the body's 20 foot long GI tract and its main purpose is to extract water and whatever small amount of nourishment is left in the previously ingested food prior to being pushed out one's rear end as waste.
I'll explain...
When I was diagnosed with FAP life looked a lot different. I was an introverted 16 year old who was quietly struggling to make sense of a divided family and, like most kids, trying to fit in socially in high school. Colonoscopy, polyps and a colectomy were not in my vocabulary and I, like most teenagers, thought cancer was something that would happen to someone else.
The diagnoses of FAP came as a terrifying shock. All of a sudden doctors were laying out a precarious medical future for myself that included me having a colectomy, the operation that I am having tomorrow, to be done within the year. Something that at the time I understandably did not want. Fortunately my father and his partner (who has a background in nutrition) suggested that I undergo regular medical surveillance (~2 colonoscopies and endoscopies per year) while at the same time making changes to my diet, lifestyle, etc...
Getting on some level that my adolescent life was awkward enough (yes, believe it or not I was not the star of the basketball team :) ) and having a healthy fear of going under the surgeons knife I chose the wait and watch approach.
And so began a journey that was fuelled initially by my fear of dying and whose mantra was the question:
what can I do to not get sick?
Through this journey I turned over many different stones... some large and some small. Some lead me in the direction of diets and supplements and involved seeing naturopaths and dieticians where I explored everything from gluten free, macrobiotic, and low sugar diets to the vast realm of natural supplements that ranged from grounded common sense to borderline snake oil salesman. All this with the hope that these would affect change in the depths of my GI tract.
Other stones unturned were of the spiritual and new age type. This took me as far away as the Philippines when I experimented with psychic surgery (definitely a once in a lifetime experience that, while it proved to be quite extra-ordinary, did not in the end result in any changes). Other modalities that I explored included... emotional freedom technique, thought field therapy, positive visualizations, Avatar, Reiki, acupuncture, meditation, hypnosis and rolfing.
Last and certainly not least my journey also included the areas of mainstream psychotherapy including cognitive behaviour therapy, relationship skills, and communication skills. This has taken the form of attending several multi-day programs at a world class personal and professional development institute called the Haven to attending support groups and one on one counselling sessions.
Given that this journey is 17 years and counting and I have dedicated a significant chunk of my focus to it I have asked myself did any of this work and was the effort worth it? After all I am 33 years old and have had one surgery and am heading in for what will hopefully (knock on wood) be my last one tomorrow.
Did any of the actions I took result in me making it to today without developing colon cancer? Who knows. Maybe I would have had the same result if I had of prolonged the surgery and not overturned all those stones. I'll leave the answer of that up to the folks who are trained to do this kind of research.
This leads me to the second question... was it worth it? On the down side, and as of tomorrow, I will have had the two surgeries that I was trying to avoid and on top of this I am still facing some uncertainty around the existing desmoid tumours that I have. With this in mind I might be tempted to give a luke warm maybe...
But when I consider that while this journey was initially about avoiding getting sick I was also coming face to face with my own mortality. And in this face to face I found myself asking the question who am I? And I know now that I have a much clearer picture of who I am as a person and what is important to me in my life then when I started this journey.
I am a happily married young man who knows that having a family is more important to him than a career. I know that relationships and time with friends and family in the here and now is tremendously important to me. I have a much deeper appreciation for the fact that there are no guarantees in life and that bad things happen to good people. I know that I sleep better if at the end of the day if I have helped make someone's world better for them. I have also learned to accept help from those around me and that accepting help is not something to be ashamed of or to feel guilty about.
Have I figured everything out? Hell no. Have I figured some stuff out? Yes. Was the journey worth it? You bet. Is the journey over? Not even close! I'll be doing this until the day I die (a long, long time from now :) ).
I'm hooked!
Tomorrow morning I will subject myself to today's wizards of biology for them to remove an organ that has been both the biggest risk to my life and been a vehicle through which I have taught myself to live a much more nourishing life. So my guess is the first part makes sense to you; surgeons are today's wizards and my colon, complete with all of its polyps, is a ticking colon cancer time bomb.
But if you said the piece about my colon being a vehicle through which I have taught myself to live a more nourishing life sounded like bullocks I would understand. After all the colon is the last stop in the body's 20 foot long GI tract and its main purpose is to extract water and whatever small amount of nourishment is left in the previously ingested food prior to being pushed out one's rear end as waste.
I'll explain...
When I was diagnosed with FAP life looked a lot different. I was an introverted 16 year old who was quietly struggling to make sense of a divided family and, like most kids, trying to fit in socially in high school. Colonoscopy, polyps and a colectomy were not in my vocabulary and I, like most teenagers, thought cancer was something that would happen to someone else.
The diagnoses of FAP came as a terrifying shock. All of a sudden doctors were laying out a precarious medical future for myself that included me having a colectomy, the operation that I am having tomorrow, to be done within the year. Something that at the time I understandably did not want. Fortunately my father and his partner (who has a background in nutrition) suggested that I undergo regular medical surveillance (~2 colonoscopies and endoscopies per year) while at the same time making changes to my diet, lifestyle, etc...
Getting on some level that my adolescent life was awkward enough (yes, believe it or not I was not the star of the basketball team :) ) and having a healthy fear of going under the surgeons knife I chose the wait and watch approach.
And so began a journey that was fuelled initially by my fear of dying and whose mantra was the question:
what can I do to not get sick?
Through this journey I turned over many different stones... some large and some small. Some lead me in the direction of diets and supplements and involved seeing naturopaths and dieticians where I explored everything from gluten free, macrobiotic, and low sugar diets to the vast realm of natural supplements that ranged from grounded common sense to borderline snake oil salesman. All this with the hope that these would affect change in the depths of my GI tract.
Other stones unturned were of the spiritual and new age type. This took me as far away as the Philippines when I experimented with psychic surgery (definitely a once in a lifetime experience that, while it proved to be quite extra-ordinary, did not in the end result in any changes). Other modalities that I explored included... emotional freedom technique, thought field therapy, positive visualizations, Avatar, Reiki, acupuncture, meditation, hypnosis and rolfing.
Last and certainly not least my journey also included the areas of mainstream psychotherapy including cognitive behaviour therapy, relationship skills, and communication skills. This has taken the form of attending several multi-day programs at a world class personal and professional development institute called the Haven to attending support groups and one on one counselling sessions.
Given that this journey is 17 years and counting and I have dedicated a significant chunk of my focus to it I have asked myself did any of this work and was the effort worth it? After all I am 33 years old and have had one surgery and am heading in for what will hopefully (knock on wood) be my last one tomorrow.
Did any of the actions I took result in me making it to today without developing colon cancer? Who knows. Maybe I would have had the same result if I had of prolonged the surgery and not overturned all those stones. I'll leave the answer of that up to the folks who are trained to do this kind of research.
This leads me to the second question... was it worth it? On the down side, and as of tomorrow, I will have had the two surgeries that I was trying to avoid and on top of this I am still facing some uncertainty around the existing desmoid tumours that I have. With this in mind I might be tempted to give a luke warm maybe...
But when I consider that while this journey was initially about avoiding getting sick I was also coming face to face with my own mortality. And in this face to face I found myself asking the question who am I? And I know now that I have a much clearer picture of who I am as a person and what is important to me in my life then when I started this journey.
I am a happily married young man who knows that having a family is more important to him than a career. I know that relationships and time with friends and family in the here and now is tremendously important to me. I have a much deeper appreciation for the fact that there are no guarantees in life and that bad things happen to good people. I know that I sleep better if at the end of the day if I have helped make someone's world better for them. I have also learned to accept help from those around me and that accepting help is not something to be ashamed of or to feel guilty about.
Have I figured everything out? Hell no. Have I figured some stuff out? Yes. Was the journey worth it? You bet. Is the journey over? Not even close! I'll be doing this until the day I die (a long, long time from now :) ).
I'm hooked!