Weird Symptoms - Diagnosing Colorectal Cancer

Colon cancer can look a lot like grief or fatigue, so I didn't recognize it for maybe 2 years. Lining up so well with my mom's passing and other stressful events isn't bad timing, though, because God's timing is always perfect.

It's just grief.

I've had low energy for months, maybe even a year. I haven't had energy for cooking, programming, or even videogames, so I've fallen massively behind in my hobbies. Basically, I've been really lame. The timing lines up perfectly with my mom's passing in September 2022, so I assumed it was part of grieving and would pass eventually.

It's just a pulled muscle.

About six months before the diagnosis, I felt the worst pain I've ever felt in my right side. It felt like a dagger in my liver, and I could not lift my arm over my head. I could barely even sit up. Before the pain, I had been nonstop coughing every night for weeks, so constantly I couldn't have conversations. Google suggested it was a torn muscle, which constant coughing can cause. After two or three weeks, the pain dropped to a manageable level, only hurting some days. It concerned me, but I ultimately let it go.

It's just stress.

My health was in the background all 2023. Instead, the entire year, I made it my mission to fix my relationship with my dad. He never accepted me as "I came out wrong," so he cut me out of his life as much as possible. Mom's death softened him and I think he has been making small efforts to try to be my dad, so I interpreted it as a chance to mend.

I threw myself wholeheartedly into building our relationship, accompanying him to his GriefShare group despite my discomfort with group therapy, arranging father-daughter time, and making regular phone calls. There's never been a space for me in his life, but I tried. I felt like it was a chance to share in his spiritual growth, too, so I encouraged him as gently as I could to read the Bible and pray. He responded vaguely until he finally put words in God's mouth to justify his actions. It struck my heart. I had to quit and examine my own soul after the Lord's name was used in vain.

Also during this time, he was getting in wrecks or near-wrecks as often as he was getting in a car. Some of them were severe for the other drivers, too. I'm not kidding when I say I dreaded answering the phone because I knew I was about to have to drop everything and pick him up from another car rental place. It was happening several times a week. He totalled Mom's car pretty fast after her passing.

I took over as his personal Uber out of concern. He wasn't on drugs or anything, he is just the most anxious person on earth. I didn't help, though. He would scream randomly and backseat drive to the point even I started having near-wrecks. The drama climaxed three months ago (crazy timing!) when Dad insisted on taking a turn driving me to GriefShare. My husband came out and refused for me to get in the car with him ever again. It turned into a yard fight with all the neighbors watching where Dad spewed the most hateful words against Mom I had ever heard and blatantly confessed to all the times he's abused Mom and me, despite his years of gaslighting.

It was shocking. All these years, I sympathetically thought he had some undiagnosed mental handicap of some kind that caused him to be unaware of how he abused us and to forget it even happens. After all, he hit me to the point of injury even as a kid, touched me inappropriately during puberty, and still makes sexual comments to me over the phone. Who can do such things in their right mind? And I thought he had changed with Mom's passing. He is still mean-spirited, ridiculously anxious, and talks way too much about himself, but it is all so much less than before. I really thought he isn't that bad. But he had never seemed more hateful to me than in that moment. Maybe he is trying to repair things in his own way, but he is still Dad.

This fight was the last time I was able to talk to him. He tried to get me to continue running errands for him, but I was not only too hurt by his words to take calls; I was sick. I couldn't eat. I couldn't stay awake. It was about three months before the diagnosis, and my energy dropped to an all-time low. I could get through a day, but I would curl up and sleep the moment I got home. I thought Dad had placed too much stress for me to bear, and I had to rest for a long time to recover. I didn't. I blamed the grief and the fight.

It's just pneumonia.

This entire time, I still had the cough. My husband kept having issues of his own, though, so I would delay any care for myself for his sake. The most extreme was Bell's palsy, which seems an awful lot like a stroke in the moment. Finally, my husband told me to go to the doctor today.

Chest x-rays revealed fluid in my lungs, and my doctor called me with urgency in her voice to go to the ER ASAP. Doctors, illness, medicine, (and cancer) is my ultimate phobia, so hearing an emotional doctor like that got my heart pumping. I'm really ignorant when it comes to medical stuff, so I didn't really know what lung fluid is. But it freaked me out. However, when I got to the ER, the doctor massively downplayed the fluid, insisting there was barely any. But he was concerned that my symptoms didn't line up. He ran test after test. God bless him for being thorough because he could have sent me home with antibiotics, but he somehow found the masses on my liver and caking based on a chest x-ray and a hunch. It wasn't long until I was formally diagnosed with colon cancer in November 2023. They said I probably have had it for 2 years.

It's just cancer.

My grandmother died from cancer. My mom recently died from cancer. My aunt very recently caught and surgically removed cancer. It seems like every woman on my mom's side gets cancer, so what hope was there for me?

Back when Mom passed, Dad, being the most anxious and overbearing person on earth, called me over and over telling me I will get cancer next and to get tested immediately. I actually did go to a cancer clinic in January. Ironically, the most they were willing to do was a genetic test and told me to come back for screening when I am middle-aged - when I very likely had cancer right then at the age of 28!

Regardless, the paranoia was firmly planted in my head. Every time I had a weird pain in my belly, the thought of cancer would pass my mind. I didn't take it seriously, though, because cancer is so extreme. It was like this meme that was floating around at the time, but...the painful spots actually were the same spots as the masses. So ironic!

So when I was told I have masses, it might as well have been a formal diagnosis. I definitely had cancer.

Just cancer??

I was primed for the worst news and then I was suddenly confronted with my capital phobia. I was a wreck, right? Strangely, no.

My pastor had recently given sermons on how Christians ought to rejoice in tribulations as opportunities for spiritual growth. I had read some James and 1 Peter, too, which only reinforce the glory of tribulation. I honestly scoffed that I could ever be that Christian, especially in the context of cancer. It seemed impossible to praise God and thank Him for the day if that ever happened. But of course I don't want to be out of alignment with Scripture, so I prayed for God to search my heart and change it. And He sure flipped my perspective upside-down.

I was calm when they found the masses. The Bible already explains why very obviously. Unlike the fool's mission of building a normal relationship with my dad, God has obviously placed me square in the middle of cancer for a reason. And if He puts you somewhere, He provides everything you need. He gives me the strength, He gives me the peace, and He gives me countless reasons to praise Him day-in and day-out. Undoubtedly it's impossible to go through tribulations on my own. But if they are God-given and intended for spiritual growth, God will be and has been with me every step of the way. When you are with God, there is nothing to fear. Jesus' yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

So maybe these weird symptoms weren't from grief, pulled muscles, stress, or pneumonia, which would all be vastly preferable. But cancer isn't so different. God holds the reins and will never leave my side. I really never thought I could say something like this, but...

I have cancer - praise God!