All I Wanna Do Is Room-A-Zoom-Zoom-Zoom In Your Boom-Boom

I have this reel on constant loop in my brain. “There’s no easy way to say this...Kenny, you have cancer.” That moment in that room was when the world not only tilted — but pretty much fell away. I looked across the room at my best friend in the world and felt like a cinder block had fallen on my head. My face went hot and my eyesight dimmed and then I thought, “You have got to effin PULL IT TOGETHER.” And that’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since. EFFIN PULL IT TOGETHER.

Even though I really wanted to punch that very kind doctor right in the mouth to make him just stop talking. I also wanted to remind him that he obviously had the wrong room. We’re the celiac people. You’re obviously confused. But there we sat. In the bad room. While this doctor — whose eyes were filled with tears as he spoke and who also admitted to cussing “very loudly” during the procedure — pulled the rug out from under us.

Anyone who knows me knows that anything that happens to anyone I care about becomes all about me. But I decided it was time to put on my big girl panties and actually make it about him. I have no earthly idea what it must feel like to have those words spoken to you, to know there is something deep in your body that could kill you. But I do know that I felt just like the words were being spoken to me. He is me. He’s my everything. But I’m going to pull it together and we’re going to kick this thing on its ass. And out of his.

So colorectal cancer. Apparently common and apparently curable if caught early. It’s still scary as shit to hear. And it so happens that there are also endless jokes to be made about cancer of the shitter. That’s pretty much who were are. When the chips are down, we take it upon ourselves to find the humor in the really darkest of places. I will say that we are in full agreement that we will beat this thing. Because Kenny knows that if he isn’t around, the girls and I would probably never eat another home-cooked meal. And I’d find a way to rationalize wine being one of the major food groups.

The diagnosis is scary, but the prognosis is good. At this point, all we know is that the CT scan (where you drink the barium and have dye poured into your arm via IV) came back clear. Which means this first test is indicating that it hasn’t spread past that little medium-sized effer that’s embedded itself into the bowel wall. Made itself at home. And now is about to be evicted.

We still have biopsy results to get back (hopefully today or tomorrow) to tell us about lymph nodes. And an endoscopic ultrasound to be had in Denver — which gives us a quite grand excuse to make a stop at Little Man ice cream on the way home.

The appointment with the oncologist is on Monday. We hope to be able to keep it there — but that depends on having all of these puzzle pieces in place. So the big picture can be laid out. Surgery (a definite) and whether we get to have a chemo/radiation party too.

All this because my little pooper (as I had started to call him recently) has to leave deposits at every restaurant and grocery store and book store and coffee shop (and every where else) bathroom that we go. That, along with some rather sharp pain that showed up right around the time of Mima’s funeral. It would have been easy to shrug it all off with some Preparation H, but luckily we didn’t. It turns out that those symptoms were all completely unrelated to the BIG C — and we are just unbelievably grateful that he like to visits bathrooms like he does. (I never thought I’d hear myself say that.) And Poppy will also be thrilled to know that now those poop stories will actually, truly never end.

So suffice it to say, turning 40 has been a real barrel of monkeys. We lost one of the most important people in our lives to cholangiocarcinoma on May 5th, and barely a month later are back to fighting cancer ourselves. I’d really like to pull the covers over my head and press rewind. Call for a do-over. I guess my tear ducts needed some serious cleaning out. But I am putting on my big girls panties again today and going to EFFIN PULL IT TOGETHER.

Our little girls still don’t know. And we’d like to keep it that way for now. Thanks for all of the amazing outpouring of love and support. Who knew people liked us that much.

We thank you and so does Kenny’s bum.

TODAY’S THEME SONG: Shake Your Rump. Beasties. Rope a dope dookies all around the neck. Whoo-ha. Got them all in check.