#2 A brief intro & holiday concerns

I decided to start writing this a blog as I find it therapeutic to record thoughts and feelings as I start this intended journey through treatment to recovery.  Also I hope to share this with our children when they are older to show that whatever life throws at you, you can deal with it.  I also hope that it can help anyone else in a similar position either now or in the future both to answer questions around what procedures are like or help around mental support.  Strength in numbers and all that!  

I am highly conscious that this is my journey that is as unique as a fingerprint, and my take on things.  Things I find easy others won't, things others find easy I don't (did I mention needles…..GAH!!!!) 

Just one caveat for any close friends or colleagues reading - you quickly lose your inhibitions when it comes to bowel c - so there is lots of talk about poo! and bums unfortunately! If you don't think you can still look me in the eye knowing that then maybe don't read any further :)

The name of my blog links to my sporting background having run to a decent standard starting when I was 8, swum competitively when I was young getting to county trials and more recently racing triathlons from 2002 through to 2017 to half-Iron distance.  Sporting psychology has always fascinated me - linking back to the power of the mind - so I'm trying to take the sporting mindset into this battle and view it as an endurance event.  This makes me feel more at home than thinking about beige oncology suites, radioactive treatments and NEEDLES!!! :O

My Mum was c.38 when she was diagnosed with breast Cancer although it was something she had darkly predicted a decade earlier.  Around 1978 when she had been dating my Dad for a while she bizarrely told him one day 'I think I'm going to die of breast cancer one day'.  To this day we have no idea why she said it - apart from maybe an Auntie she had similarities with who was diagnosed with it.  Ten years later as she had predicted she was diagnosed with breast cancer, however none of us or her family knew that she had it until maybe 2002 apart from our Dad.  She chose not to tell her sister or Mum during this period.  This was an enormous burden for him who had to take all this on himself - alongside a pressurised role as a senior police commander - and I've never fully understood this until my first conversation with my Oncologist who gave me some insight into her mindset.  But I'll save that for later.

Mum somehow fought it bravely for 17 years until 2005 - during a time when I imagine the treatments were fairly prehistoric - but sadly succumbed in 2005 a few days after the last of her sons got his first job after Uni.  We all sense that she had achieved what she wanted - to see all her son's grow up and settle - but after 17 years of a brutal struggle her body and mind were tired and it was time for her to sign out with a sense of achievement (and rightly so).  During the early years I recall seeing some drugs in the kitchen cupboard I'd seen on TV as being linked to Cancer, but thought if it was anything to worry about Mum and Dad would tell us.  My brothers also told stories of them finding a wig in Mum's bedroom once and running around wearing it and chasing each other ha ha  I still miss her so much every day and often think about how proud she'd be of her 5 grandchildren, 3 of whom are strong girls which she would have loved after having to put up with 3 sporty, overly-competitive and often filthy sons!

I'm not sure why but following on from this I have always had a 'niggle' that I would get Cancer one day.  I hoped it would come to nothing.  My Nan is 92, her sister is 94 and her brother just passed away at 98 and I often joked that I'd live to 50 or 100 but I wasn't sure which way it would go lol  There are others in my family who have had Cancer - my maternal Grandad, my paternal Grandpa and more recently my maternal Auntie although all diagnosis were relatively more common at >60.

For a while I have had a few symptoms that have niggled at me.  Occasionally I have had a shooting pain in my lower groin although I remember first going to see my doctor at Uni about this aged c.20.  More recently I went back to the doctor with these symptoms who diagnoses an old cyst although a testicular ultrasound scan later came back clear.  This partly reassured me but partly niggled me that whatever was causing this shooting pain hadn't been found.  In this end this was unrelated to my cancer. 

I have also had blood in my stools infrequently (maybe once or twice a month) for a number of years.  Maybe 2 years ago I got this checked out and the doctor diagnosed an old pile which again partly reassured me but partly niggled me. The blood was (and still is) bright red whereas blood for bowel cancer is commonly reported as much darker bordering on black.  He said blood tests can be hit and miss (he was proved correct on this when mine recently came back clear) and he gave a reason that I went with at the time as to why he wouldn't recommend a colonoscopy.  In the end my oncologist said that this appears to have been correct diagnosis at the time - although a colonoscopy may have picked up the pre-cancerous growth sooner but even as I started my recent doctor visits 2 doctors didn't have any major concerns that it might be cancer.

The only other thing of note was a persistent cough that I seemed to get most winters that would last 5+ weeks, annoy the hell out of my colleagues - yet when I finally went to the doctors it always followed a similar pattern.  The doctor would listen to my chest, check my ears and mouth - tell me all was clear, that it was probably a virus but they'd send me for a chest X-ray anyway - that always came back clear. 

Now this may make me sound like a hypochondriac but that is pretty much my medical history over 20 years (apart from plantar fasciitis in my foot that I have had for 2 years (likely the result of tight calves after 30 years of regular running).  I rarely visited the doctors (my view was that you are likely to pick something up worse in the waiting room, than whatever you went in for) and can only recall taking 1 sick day off since joining Nestle in 2004 apart from having my wisdom teeth out.  Given my sporting background overall I was (and still feel) in excellent health.

In May of this year we were looking forward to a family holiday to Florida and my persistent cough had been there for some time so after much moaning by my colleagues I succumbed to pressure and went to the doctors just before we went.  This ran to the usual routine and my chest was clear but I mentioned in passing again the blood in my stool as it had become slightly worse - albeit I had changed my diet this year to more homemade fruit smoothies and a daily meal replacement shake - so it could be explained away.  However the locum doctor said it was important that I go back and get it looked at asap after our holiday. 

Whilst on holiday it started to play on my mind and for some reason when we were having some downtime I was getting quite worried - I was googling links such as piles vs. bowel cancel and reading and re-reading articles and symptoms.  I even messaged my Dad to check that in our family history of cancer that bowel cancer didn't feature as this is quite significant (it didn't) - he said it sounds like you've got the Drayton bum (i.e. piles ha ha).  That allayed my fears to an extent but that little voice in my head still niggled at me and I made a pact that I would make getting this checked out my top priority on my return.  I tried to forget it as much as I could and enjoy the holiday - which was an amazing family holiday for mine and my wife's 40th's.