A masters runner navigating multiple cancers

Tag: Pre-op

19 April 2026

Let’s make a hard pivot

I was just getting into the headspace of starting immunotherapy this coming week when my phone rang at the end of the day last Thursday. It didn’t have call display, so I debated whether to even answer. Who would be calling me that wasn’t already in my contacts? I’m glad I picked it up.

It was a colleague of my medical oncologist, calling to tell me that the tumor board had met. Instead of moving ahead with immunotherapy, the new plan was to proceed directly to surgery. The rationale was that the lesion in my colon is small, and my other CT findings are unrelated to the bowel tumor. A successful resection should complete treatment. Good news, right?
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2 April 2026

Everything comes in pairs

I really wanted to be boring for a while. But oh well.

A few weeks ago, while waiting on pathology, I was musing about my colonoscopy results being ‘the other cancer shoe.’ Well, shoes do come in pairs, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when my doctor confirmed my colon lesion was malignant. To be precise: “Invasive poorly differentiated colorectal adenocarcinoma, BRAF Positive, dMMR, MSI-high.”

Two primaries. One body. Zero chill from my cells, apparently.
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4 February 2024

Ramblings after a Sunday long run

Today is World Cancer Day. It’s also my long run day. As much as it was sunny outside, it was also cold, so I took my run to the gym instead of heading for the mountain as I had intended. Sixty minutes later, I’m comfortably tired, stretching like a cat as I let my heart rate come back down.

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31 January 2024

Tapering? For surgery?

I was a little surprised when my phone showed that it was the hospital calling on Tuesday afternoon. My pre-surgery screening was already scheduled for Thursday, so maybe it was to move my appointment time? No, it was to confirm that my surgery will happen on Thursday, 8 February. Short taper.

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24 January 2024

Who’s on first?

When I hung up on the call with my gynecologist on that day, it took a while for the reality to settle and the news to feel real. And then it started. Figuring out who to tell, what to say, and in what order. There’s no one way that fits all scenarios, and no right way to tackle the words to use.

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22 January 2024

It’s never just one thing.

As tempting as it is to think your diagnosis will receive your undivided attention, we lead complex lives when it comes to our health. My invitation to participate in the provincially-sponsored mammogram screening program arrived while I was still navigating tests early in my diagnosis. I called the closest center and requested an appointment. It was early November. My appointment would likely be February I was told.

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21 January 2024

The pre-op consult, and more waiting …

On the day of my pre-op consult, I had to be at the hospital at 8:30 am. We’d gotten a decent amount of snow the day before, so I took an Uber instead of the bus. I didn’t want to be late and didn’t want to risk delays because the streets weren’t plowed yet.

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20 January 2024

A new take on a training block.

Before I was diagnosed, my last in-person race was a 10k in May. It was my ‘home race’ where I usually ran the half, but this time I had picked the shorter distance. In my head, I was on the cusp of breaking up with longer distances — my entry into the Chicago marathon had gotten waylaid by the pandemic and looking at turning 60 felt like a good time to reframe why I was racing.

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