Life Change

So, fuck cancer. That's the creed muttered by cancer patients worldwide. We go on social media and spell it out in one word led with a hashtag. We wear t-shirts with the words emblazoned on the front and back. "Fuck Cancer" is our mantra.
When adenocarcinoma struck me, I was in the middle of accelerating my life; a wife, new job and moving up in the world. The call came while I was at my step-son's home, loading a moving van with the last of our stuff to move to Missoula Montana. The call that changed my life.

The summer of 2015 was a great summer. I took my, then girlfriend, to Conner Montana for her birthday. The East Fork of the Bitterroot river is a spectacular area and it just so happens a good friend of mine has a place up there and we stayed there for my, now, wife's birthday. I woke up the next morning with a hacking cough.
A month later, Memorial Day, I was engaged to the love of my life. July 24th, 2015 I married that wonderful gal. The cough persisted.

Life changes led to jobs and a new home in Missoula Montana. It was March 2016 and we were in Helena picking up the last of our stuff to take to Missoula. I had just undergone numerous tests with the VA for the cough. I remember I was struggling with some heavy boxes when my phone rang. It was a doctor. The images of my lungs, showed a mass. My mind raced and I don't remember much as my whole world changed. Within a week I was undergoing surgery and setting up appointments for chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Now, those changes just prior to being diagnosed with cancer were an important chapter in my life and not just on the surface; new job, new home, new wife, but these were important building blocks to be in place for the 6 months of my treatments. The cancer center that saved my life was literally down the street from our new home. My wife is so amazingly strong and cared for me through the entire process. It all happened for a reason and that reason was for me to survive cancer.

I can say "Fuck Cancer" because I had a network of people who made me a survivor. The changes, however, didn't stop after treatment.

I was determined to make the summer of 2017 the best ever as a way to make up for the summer of 2016. That didn't work, because just as the activities began, wildfires broke out around the state. My lungs went through a lot during treatment and the smoke from wildfires was just intolerable.

With the summer of 2017, the first year of recovery, a bust my wife and I spent Thanksgiving in Southern Utah. It was this journey that I asked my wife what she thought about moving to Utah. It was a surprisingly quick answer of "sure". I feel it was easy to make the decision because there were negative issues piling up in Montana. For me, the biggest factor was the weather and I just have to have warm, hot, weather.

The residual effects of surviving cancer manifest themselves in other health issues. I mean, after all, they poisoned me for six months, killing all of my cells in hopes that only the good cells would grow back. I do have kidney issues and breathing issues. One would think that my health would get a huge boost from all the water I drink now instead of pop, but one would be wrong. Yes, it is healthier, but my metabolism is so slow now. During chemo I had a huge craving for carbs that just hasn't gone away. With the kidney issues, I also have to watch my protein intake and this screws with my weight too.

This blog sounds like a journal entry, and it really is an entry onto a blog directly from my thoughts. I've had a lot of changes in the last six years since I used Blogger and the last three are head spinning changes. I'm a married home owning cancer survivor in a completely new environment. It was a huge risk to pick up and leave Montana, but it has worked out and I'm finding that life changes, no matter how radical, have just as good a chance as being bad or good. Quite frankly, life changes are both good and bad, it just depends on which you dwell upon.

I'm happy, my wife is happy and life is adjusting just fine to the change. The next step will be taking back control of my overall health. I'm starting a diet and workout regimen that should have me back to a healthy weight by the end of the year. As I stated above, the wildfires of 2017 affected my recovery and that means recovery now begins in this new home. I'm glad I took the risk of change, in every action I've made. It has saved my life and I feel it will continue to serve me well. Embrace change.