I knew something was wrong for a while. I felt strange. I had symptoms. But it was very easy to make excuses: I was working out a lot then my family went through some very difficult times then I got covid. And you know how times goes along so quickly, I was going to take care of it one of these days.
I finally went to my doctor and told him what was happening and we scheduled a colonoscopy as quickly as possible. He was acting very calm, but I was a year late. While Tom drove me to the appointment I turned to him and said, “what will we do when we find out I have cancer.” He told me not to joke about that, and we’d find our way through it.
I woke up to the anesthesiologist saying to then use, “it’s cancer.” I started crying and said “did you say I have cancer?” He said “I’m sorry” and went to get the doctor and my husband. They knew just from looking that it was cancer, and we talked briefly about what to do next – all under the assumption that it was colorectal cancer.
But the biopsy was inconclusive and went out to the Cleveland Clinic. It took ten days to find out that I have mucosal melanoma.
And everything changed. My life came to a standstill.