I haven't really hidden it, but haven't expressly shared, so some of you might know that my wife has been fighting cancer for the last year. Recently we found out that fight will be heavily stacked against her. After several surgeries, including removing the bladder and putting in place a stoma, and 1 year of chemotherapy and immunotherapy going through 4 different treatments there seemed to be a couple of tumours in the region of the original tumour, so the plan was to remove these and start new chemo on drug #5. Well, it turns out despite all the advancements in MRI/PET/CT they completely failed to show that the cancer had heavily metastasised. There is a rating from 0-39 to describe the extent of metastasis, and my wife was at 35... They removed some tumours that were blocking the intestines but left the rest, so now she has another stoma and feels more like a bionic women than a human, but we are grateful for the modern medicine that makes this possible. No ideas of timelines, we just have to take 1 day at a time. We have 2 children, one with moderately severe Autism, so this was challenging to manage. It is difficult to describe how this makes me feel, except I have to stay strong for our children and it has thus been more of a pragmatic acceptance than the end of the world.
On top of that, for the last 3 months I have had a persistent tooth ache, leading to first removing a wisdom tooth and a course of antibiotics, which progressed in a somewhat repetitive process of tooth extraction and antibiotics. You can guess where this goes - this week i was diagnosed with some kind of bone cancer on the jaw, less than one month after finding out about my wife.
I'm just in disbelief and shock, and again, I just have to keep it together and look after the kids. My wife is OK without pain, but the chemo fatigue means she is almost house bound and needs lots of sleep. So I'm trying to pretend everything is normal for the children. **** know what state I would be in if it wasn't for the children. Kind of like Walter White, I just have a dull acceptance of the situation. I cannot change it, I know I have to fight to my last breath to be there for the children. We haven't told them yet, I don't know if we can, it will destroy them.
The next 2 weeks will be filled with scans and doctor meetings. There will be surgery in a few weeks, where they will take out my left jaw bone, potentially in its entirety to leave the maximal margin of safety. Bone form my leg will be used to create a new jaw, and soft tissue from the fore-arm to rebuild the face. I should expect 3 weeks in the hospital, fed through a tube into the stomach. I'm hoping it is as soon a possible so I might be home to spend the last Christmas with my whole family. Then radio and maybe chemo therapy. I am fit and strong, and have told the doctor to go for 100% maximally aggressive surgery, chemo and anything else because it is absolutely paramaount I survive to be there for the children, however incapacitated I might be short term. With any luck, there has been no metastasis and i'll be on the road to recovery within 6 months.
I'm not looking for sympathy or any support. I just want you all to reflect on your lives, and appreciate what is most important. I know many of you think I am some insufferable woke communist, and I really don't care, you can continue to do so and call me out on that. But I would like you to realise the value in the wellbeing of those you love; how you must appreciate and add value to each day your live, and that the world is not black and white. **** things happen to good people through no fault of their own, and one day it might be you.
