From my latest article for The Mighty.
When I was told I had colon cancer, my brain scurried to catch up with my emotions, and time seemed to slow down. After speaking with hundreds of men and women given this same news, I know I am not alone experiencing this response — stunned disbelief and feeling like you are in a dream. It really doesn’t feel authentic, yet it is. What I have found interesting is how we all differ, sometimes radically, on how we decide to proceed from that point.
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Capable Fitness 
Thank you for sharing so much! I also delved into The Mighty and really like it. I have to say Gail, you are kind of a big deal! Congratulations!
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Can I tell my husband that you think so? I have a hard time convincing him of that Lol!! Thanks for reading!!
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I love your blog Gail! I know I’ve said that before but I really love your blog, every article is awesome! I had a GF go through breast cancer last year & she decided to NOT tell more than a few people, she wanted to do it mostly alone. Like your friend Carol, I told her that she had an army of friends who would love to help her, pray for her, send love, light & healing hugs . . . even help her with transportation to & from appointments, cook for her etc but she chose to not share & I respected that decision. After the mastectomy, rounds of chemo & 18 months of “dealing alone” she is “cancer free” & has chosen to tell a few more people what she went through. Many of those have told her they knew something was wrong but assumed she would tell them if & when she wanted to. She’s never told me that she regrets her decision so I believe she made the right choice for her.
Gail, I’m really glad you shared your story with me & many others & continue to blog about everything you blog about.
Have a great day, huge healing hugs & love coming your way.
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Thanks for your comments. They are always appreciated. Every person must walk their own path and be comfortable with that. If you want to pivot and change your mind, that’s okay, but if you want to stay the course, that’s fine as well. Either way great friends and caring family are so important. Thank you fro reading!
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Been trying to think of something profound to put in a comment. Your piece was exceptionally powerful and it was rough to read at the same time. I guess I wouldn’t expect cancer in someone who’s taken fitness so seriously…. In that way, it kind of knocked my bulletproof armor off, if you know what I mean.
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First of all, thank you. It was hard to write. I don’t do vulnerable nearly as well as I do sarcasm. I did not expect cancer either. It really pissed me off after doing almost everything right. Let me share something with you that my cancer surgeon told me. He said that while being extremely fit did not stop me from getting cancer, it was the direct reason I was able to have a laparoscopic surgery, and was able to recover so swiftly. If you are obese you usually have to have an open surgery which takes much longer to recover from. He also told me that he always gets a feeling of dread when he must operate on someone who is unfit, unhealthy and overweight. The outcome is usually not bright. So…..when I told him that perhaps I should have been eating skittles for breakfast every morning and shoving Hostess Ho Ho’s down my throat, he disagreed. I might very well not be sitting here right now typing this out to you if I had. While your armor might not be completely bulletproof, it’s a damned sight better than a fat ass and stomach…..plus not nearly as superheroish.
I’ve had a bit of a mind shift because of all this. I used to think that staying fit and eating properly was the right thing to do because it would help me live a longer and much better life. That’s still true, but I’ve added: it will help me fight off the unimaginable.
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Thanks for providing the context Gail, that makes it make sense a little better.
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Greetings to you 🙂
Thanks for the follow! How have you been and how’s your blog doing?
I don’t know if you know that I moved my blog to a self-hosted platform. This has prevented me from connecting with WordPress bloggers like I used to. I would still like to remain in contact with your blog. Do you have an RSS feed I can subscribe to?
If you would still like to follow my blog, may I add you to my mailing list? I send out one email per day with all the blogs posted for the day including blogging tips. You can also unsubscribe at any time if you feel you want to stop receiving the emails. If you are happy for me to subscribe you, please send me your email address.
Also, I created a blogger tips group to connect with all my long last WordPress blogger friends, and to help all of us to learn from each other. I would love for you to share your knowledge in the group and connect with other bloggers. Here’s the link:
Blogger Tips Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1601156120192716/)
Finally, here’s a blog I thought you may find interesting:
The Ripple Effect of Blogging
Best regards,
Greta
Founder of Healthy Living
http://www.healthyliving894.com
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HI, Gail! Thanks for stopping by my other blog and liking my post on Obama’s farewell address. Congrats on your healthy life!
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Tony, you cannot imagine how thrilled I was when I discovered you had TWO blogs and that, like me, you’re not a progressive liberal. I love both of your blogs for different reasons. Your willingwheeling has the best memes and makes me laugh. Your One regular guy blog is always choc full of useful information that I have used myself, not only for my blog, but for my Capable Fitness with Gail facebook page. I am an admirer.
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You are strong and sassy. I like that in a cancer survivor!
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Much appreciated.
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OMG. Boy do we have something in common!
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Is it incredible looks, or did cancer sledgehammer you as well?
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Colon cancer – I thought my bike was my medicine. Blockage a couple of days before Thanksgiving 2015 – emergency surgery – tons of scans etc afterward discovered advanced prostate too – first 7 months of 2016 chemo (so freakin awful – still nearly cry thinking about it) then radiation for 8 weeks oh and all the while hormone therapy for the prostate that will continue through this year. So good tests on all the cancer stuff so far but I hot flashes and a hell of a shoe bill – God a man needs testosterone! thinking they should let me use my HSA to pay for all of the shoes since they did this to me!
And you?
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Diagnosed with colon cancer on September 17th, 2015. Stage 2, no lymph node involvement, no distant disease, though that took two months to find out (Canada). I thought being a fitness professional inoculated me against cancer. Turned out I was completely wrong, so my smugness about my fitness had to be retired. At the time of being diagnosed I was logging about 100 km a month running, plus doing all my other fitness pursuits. I had no symptoms. I just went in for a routine colonscopy because my dad died of colon cancer. It was my second colonoscopy. I had one in 2010 when I was 49 and it was perfection. Being in shape, though, helped me recover faster. I was offered chemo. I turned it down after speaking with my surgeon. Chemo for stage two is extremely controversial. I opted not to do it based on my particular cancer. However, I do get to have a yearly colonoscopy (such a great sleep) and yearly CT scans for the next five years. At that point, if nothing has recurred, I will be declared cancer free. I’ve already decided that is how it is going to be. I was reading your blog the other day. I did not see any cancer related posts. Can you point me to the very first one you wrote, I can go from there. Of course, I am assuming you wrote about it. Here’s my first post about it if you’d like to read it: https://capablefitness.com/2015/11/13/12/
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Crazy so we came to know about our conditions roughly 2 months apart. I had stage 3 (barely) but when combined with the advance prostate I didn’t feel any choice but to follow their strong recommendations – chemo then radiation. Again, chemo is easily the worst thing I have ever experienced and as I would sit in the infusion space getting that awful poison pumped into me and slowly going insane (yes I mean insane) – I would stagger out and it normally took a couple of days before I was even coherent – but where I was going with that was I was in very, very good condition and I often wondered how some of my cancer colleagues survived that part! Now as for my blog I did not post much and I don’t normally write much anyway – mostly pictures and a few remarks. My first post relating to the cancer was “Long temps à venir” in March 2016. I probably posted more on Instagram because less audience and my poor wife took my misery and despair personally and would get upset if I put it out there on FB. .so, I scanned a few of your posts and I’ll do more today as I work through the day – Nice to meet you BTW.
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Finally home. I’m going to read your Long temps a venir post in a few moments.
My heart goes out to you for being so honest about the chemo. Most people are reluctant to talk about it in such bold terms. I know there are people who sail through it, but the vast majority do not, and then there are the people like you that it practically kills. I’m grateful every day that I had a choice not to do it. (I guess every person with cancer has that choice, but not one where the surgeon is honest about chemo not showing much benefit in stage two). I asked my surgeon point blank that if his daughter or wife had my exact cancer, would he recommend chemo and he said no quite emphatically.
Based on what you have told me, you really did not have a choice if you wanted to live a full life. I completely get why you did not blog more extensively about it. You have to let it out, though, and I have relied heavily on my friends and family to support that, though in the beginning, I just shut down. It’s a process. And I feel we will always be on edge for the rest of our lives, even if we are declared cancer free by medical professionals. Unless you’ve been where we have been emotionally and mentally, you just don’t get it. And honestly for me, it was the emotional and mental aspects that were more difficult than the physical…..says the person who did not have to go through chemo…..
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Oh, and nice to meet you as well. I have actually met some amazing people through blogging and commenting.
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