366 Days Later . . .

I am terrible with anniversaries.

I missed blogging my one year endoscopy anniversary, when I was first informed I had a suspicious tumor in my stomach (May 17, by the way). I also missed the anniversary when the endoscopy doctor confirmed, while I was waiting for a flight back home in the Denver airport, that I had stomach cancer (the name of this blog: 23/5 or said another way, May 23).

Today is another one year anniversary. I felt I needed to provide an update.

One year ago I started chemotherapy. And I started this blog.

Doctors placed my chemo port the day prior. Then, on June 12, 2019, at 9:00 am, the nurses at Walter Reed’s Murtha Cancer Center accessed my new port and started filling my body with FLOT chemo drugs.

Since no one bought me paper for any of my multiple one year anniversaries, I decided to keep myself busy:

I rented a sod cutter from HomeDepot and cut out a bunch of dead patches of grass. Now I just need to lay the 30 pieces of sod I bought.

What a difference a year makes, though.

Shortly after my first chemo session, I immediately began feeling the effects and had little to no energy. I would go on walks and really struggle. I ended up spending the next 180 days mostly in bed, isolated from my family and friends.

Never would I have imagined a year ago that I would have spent all day under the sun, cutting and laying sod.

Nor did I think a year ago that my chemo and surgical recovery would have prepared me for COVID-19 like it has. My type-A personality would never have allowed me to quietly sit at home and wait out the stay-at-home order…#thankscancer! But I did my part for our nation:

I self-isolated [ok, I did it because my doctor’s ordered it] and needed to socially distance [because my wife didn’t want me to get close to anyone] due to my compromised immune system. I binge watched a bunch of shows because I couldn’t do much else. It was impossible to be my normal go-go-go self – always working, doing, moving. In the end, I was put into a corner for my health. But as we know:

I’m happy to say that I am a cancer fighter and survivor. I look forward to saying I’ll be a COVID-19 stay-at-home survivor, too.

I am now doing all I can to have the time of my life:

Until the next post…which hopefully won’t be another five months.