This post is part of my Cancer & Healing journal, an archive of the updates I wrote while going through treatment for Stage III rectal cancer. These entries reflect what I knew and felt at the time.

A cheeky little update, because rectal cancer sucks.

I have now spent forty days with a bag of slow drip chemo hanging off my hip like a clingy toddler who refuses to walk.

I’m at 27 days of radiation, and my body definitely knows it.

The fatigue is real. Eating feels like a bad idea most of the time, so I have officially entered my Chicken, Crackers, Cheese & Bananas Era.

Very glamorous. Michelin stars incoming.

I am hydrating like a champ, at least half a gallon of water a day. So my kidneys are winning trophies while the rest of me naps.

The tender bits sunburn is in full blazing glory. I am basically on a first name basis with my bathroom at this point. Honestly, we might start exchanging Christmas gifts soon.

But the finish line for this phase is so close I can taste it.

Only three more days.

Three more days until I can finally be free of this pump and stop sleeping with tubing wrapped around me like a confused octopus.

Then I get a few weeks of healing time while the radiation keeps doing its quiet work.

After that, I start four months of systemic chemotherapy. Then a short break, some scans and, most likely, surgery.

At this point, there are two possible surgeries ahead of me.

If they’re able to remove the damaged section and reconnect everything, I’ll have what’s called a low anterior resection, or LAR.

If that isn’t possible, I’ll need an abdominoperineal resection, or APR, which would mean a permanent colostomy and what those of us in rectal cancer land rather affectionately call a Barbie butt.

Basically, my team will decide whether my colon can be reconnected or whether we’re going with a lifelong bag.

Either way, I’m here for the win.

Thank you for cheering me on. For your prayers, your notes and your love.

It all matters, and I feel it deep.

God is good.

I am still here.

And this mountain is a long climb, but I am moving upward.

One stubborn step at a time.

Looking Back

Reading this one now makes me smile because I can hear myself in it.

I was tired. I was burned. Food had become mostly utilitarian. I had spent forty days attached to a chemotherapy pump, and radiation had thoroughly introduced itself to parts of the human anatomy that should never experience anything resembling a sunburn.

And yet I was cracking jokes about Barbie butts and confused octopuses.

Humor became one of the ways I got through cancer treatment. Not because any of this was particularly funny, but because sometimes the alternative is letting cancer occupy every square inch of the room.

There is something else in this update that feels very different to read now.

At the time, I didn’t know which surgery I would have.

I knew an LAR was possible. I knew an APR was possible. I knew there was a chance I’d wake up someday with a permanent colostomy. Those possibilities were sitting somewhere out in the future, along with four months of chemotherapy and scans I hadn’t had yet.

I couldn’t know that I would ultimately have the LAR.

That’s one reason I’m preserving these updates as I originally lived them. Hindsight makes a cancer story look strangely linear.

It wasn’t.

At almost every stage there were forks in the road, unanswered questions and things that depended on what happened next.

On November 9, I didn’t need all of those answers yet.

I needed to make it through three more days.

And I did.

For someone in the thick of chemoradiation

If you’re reading this while counting down your own final radiation treatments, I remember those numbers becoming very important.

Ten left.

Five.

Three.

One.

Treatment affects everyone differently, and my experience won’t necessarily be yours. But if you’re exhausted and uncomfortable and thoroughly ready to be finished, you’re not failing at being strong.

Sometimes strength looks suspiciously like eating whatever you can tolerate, drinking your water, taking a nap and showing up again tomorrow.

Three more days was manageable.

The entire mountain didn’t have to be.