What scares me

"Understand your fears" is on the first page of 43Things' book, in the first section of understanding yourself. It's not bolded as a crucial item but still one of those things that is really early on that you are encouraged to do.

I do not think I understood what it was like to be afraid till I was 33 years old. Till then it was anything goes, and while I did not consider myself immortal, I simply didn't care about the risks of things. I'd done stuff from:

  • whitewater rafting down waterfalls
  • cliff jumping
  • sky diving
  • long motorcycle trips
  • solo traveling to dangerous parts of the world
  • and many other oddities...

I am not an adrenalin addict though; I just did things because I could. I enjoyed portions of them and disliked others. Going up high (in the sky or on mountains), I would get the shakes, and my heart would race but the views always made it worth it. That all changed with an email I got one spring morning.

For backstory, I'd had my annual physical exam, and the doctor had sat me down and told me I needed to adjust my lifestyle. "You're drinking too much", he said. I protested, in that I hardly ever drank and didn't smoke or do drugs. He pointed out a reading on the blood test and told me, your liver disagrees. I still protested and insisted the test must be wrong and so we should repeat it.

We repeated the blood test. The results did not change. Nor did my insistence that I did not drink. This time the doctor had tested for other things too that show alcohol usage and those all came back negative. So, we scheduled an ultrasound and I went and had one done.

The morning the email came in, I was giving a tour of a datacenter to some interns and had missed a few phone calls as a result. You don't have cell phone service inside the building. I came outside, popped up my phone and saw that I had a PDF of the results from the ultrasound from the office. My doctor was cc'd. Normally this meant that everything was fine, as on bad news, Doctor Dudetsky always called. I had a missed call from the office but assumed he wouldn't have sent me the results without reaching me by phone if they were serious.

"Clear cell renal cell carcinoma, likely stage 2+."

That headlined the results report. I stopped walking and just sat down. What? I read that sentence again and again and again. Then I turned to Topher (the other tour guide), excused myself and got in a car and drove to the nearest park and called my doctor. The line was busy. I tried again and this time got through. I explained I was calling regarding a report and after giving them my name was immediately put through to Doctor Dudetsky. There was no greeting, no fanfare, no politeness. He simply said, "When can you come in?".

That mid-morning, while more than 10 years ago, is one I remember vividly. Going to his office. Being immediately let in, the nurses vacating the area, and the doctor coming in to tell me the news. He was quiet, but blunt. You have a 50/50 shot of survival. The tumor is large and pressing against your liver from your right kidney. We will need to do surgery immediately and you will likely lose a kidney. Call your family as this is serious.

In under 4 hours I had an oncologist, x-rays, another ultrasound, a CT scan, and a living will. I was no longer just some random person in the system for the University of Washington. When I logged into see my medical records a red banner highlighted the top, "cancer patient" it said.

My oncologist met with me that afternoon. He was excited to see me, and I was not excited to see him. "You're rare", he exclaimed as he explained to me that kidney cancer patients at my age was unheard of and so I was going to be interesting to treat. It was not encouraging, although he rated my chances of survival at around 60%, a 10 percent increase from the morning. He then explained the process. You have to go to triage to get scheduled for surgery. You will take all your records and submit them to the University of Washington's main hospital. The doctors there will make a decision on when you get surgery and how you get treated. You then go to treatment. This will be expensive he told me, so liquidate all your stocks, bonds, etc. Your odds are good (I disagreed), but only if you fight this with all you have, else you will not win. Do exactly as you are told.

I followed his advice. He (the oncologist) became God in my life, and I was not going to break any rules. Overnight I collected all the information, dropping it off the next morning for review, and then sat down to call my family. The triage place called back in the middle of the family call, asking for one more copy of the CT scan, and I called the CT scan location and had it sent over asap. "How long till triage?" I asked the triage team. "Depends, at most a month, for you probably a few days" was the response. I then called my family back and we talked. It was a shock to everyone. I then told my other half at the time (we had only been dating a month) and offered her an out. This isn't going to be fun I told her and if you stay, I want you to stay till the end. If you leave now, I won't fault you or be angry. She stayed (huge reason for why I married her).

It took 5 days for triage. In those five days, I lost 14 pounds. I simply couldn't eat and what I did wouldn't stay down. I tried my best, but it just didn't work. I had something inside of me, something I couldn't control, something I couldn't do anything myself about, and that thing was trying to kill me.

I was scared.

I am writing this today, so I hope you understand I did win that fight. It's a story for other time, but from the diagnosis, I learned I fear death. I fear not being here and I greatly fear not being in control. My life has changed because of it. I sold my motorcycle, I do not go whitewater rafting anymore, and each day I treasure. Am I down a kidney? Yes, and so my lifespan will be on average 10 years shorter than others, and I fear that day is coming far too quickly. Those things scare me, I try not to think of them, or I will have trouble sleeping. But everything else, it can be challenging, it can be not fun, it can be painful, but it doesn't scare me, at least not the way almost dying did.