A journey: something suggesting travel from one place to another (Merriam-Webster)
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Sometimes you choose the journey. Sometimes it chooses you.
How do you cope when a person you love is ill? What do you do when you might lose them? What can you do?
I’ve procrastinated on this post. It’s a difficult one to write; a difficult subject to revisit. This past year, Shanon suffered significant health challenges. At first, I planned to discuss them obliquely, not revealing details. But Shanon told me it’s okay. Share away. So here goes.
Everything changed just over a year ago. For us, it was two words. Eleven letters strung together to deliver an ugly, harsh, life-altering diagnosis. Colon Cancer. Several months of intermittent abdominal pain, doctors’ visits, suppositions, and false diagnoses concluded in a colonoscopy and the somber news delivered by competent gastroenterologist: there is a large tumor in the lower colon and intervention is required as soon as possible. Following a consultation with an interdisciplinary team of physicians at the University of Colorado Hospital, surgery was scheduled with possible chemotherapy and radiation to follow.
And here’s the thing, the three-hour surgery was a success. The tumor was removed, the margins were clean, no radiation or chemo were necessary. After three days in the hospital, Shanon was discharged and we returned to Leadville, our home, two hours from Denver and a mile higher than the mile-high city. But once home, Shanon’s pain worsened. Her belly was distended and she felt sloshing when turning over in bed.
A local physician and friend paid an evening house call. She examined Shanon, then urged we go to the ER immediately, to not wait until morning. The tiny ER in a tiny town echoed the physician’s concern and transported Shanon by two-hour ambulance ride to Denver’s UCHealth at 2 a.m. The anastomosis—where the two ends of the colon had been stitched together—had failed. Shanon had peritonitis. Her abdominal cavity was awash in harmful bacteria. Emergency surgery followed. A long recovery followed and included two more surgeries; infectious disease specialists; a colostomy, an ileostomy, and their reversals; and over thirty days in the hospital spread out over the three surgeries. The tumor had been removed, but we nearly lost Shanon to peritonitis. The surgeon admitted that if we’d delayed seeking emergency care, Shanon likely wouldn’t have survived. It was that close.
So after all that, when your body has been violated and traumatized, when you’ve lost significant muscle, and your weight has plummeted to 113 pounds, how do you regain strength and function? How do you embark on the road to recovery? For Shanon, you go all in. The genesis of an audacious goal: to complete an Ironman sooner rather than later. Sometimes you choose the journey.
So here we are . . .
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