Big and Scary News

The other day on Facebook, I wrote that it sometimes feels like I’m living in a Thomas Hardy novel. Here’s the thing about his fiction: every time things start to sort themselves out for the protagonists, another dark tragedy strikes. In the spirt of “openness” that I wrote about last time, I thought I’d share my latest (non-fiction) tragedy.

For a few months now, I’ve been having trouble swallowing. No matter how much I chew it, food gets stuck in my throat, and I need to drink tons of water to get it down. I didn’t see a physician about the issue right away – both because I had a check up scheduled with my family doctor for early July, and because my mother experienced similar symptoms in her old age, and I figured it was the same thing. Post check-up, my GP sent me to have a scope. Last week, on the day of my Thomas Hardy lament, the clinic had found a tumour in my esophagus. I didn’t broadcast the discovery widely, because it was at least possible that the growth was a benign cyst or some such. But it was big and scary news to be sure.

I immediately underwent more tests: blood work to check my liver functioning, biopsy, CT scan. We learned the preliminary results on Thursday the 28^th of August. My official diagnosis as of today is: Esophageal adenocarcinoma. It’s not the worst-case scenario, which would have been that there was cancer throughout my body, and I had mere months to live. It’s by no means the best-case scenario either, however.

The next step is more tests. The CT scan showed a little shadow on my liver and some swelling in the lymph nodes. They are going to do a PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography) to find out whether those are indeed cancerous. If the cells there are consuming sugars very rapidly, that’s bad news. They’ll also do an MRI to check my brain for tumours. Esophageal cancer – I hate that I’m learning to spell that word! – doesn’t typically spread to the brain, but occasionally it does. After that, there will be chemotherapy and radiation at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario, to shrink the main tumour and to kill off any rogue cells that are trying to get established elsewhere. That will likely take the whole Fall term. They’ll then repeat all the tests and decide what surgery might be appropriate. The operation would come around Christmas time.

And how bad is it? If it has spread nearby, including especially to my liver, I’m at “stage 3”. If it hasn’t, I’m “stage 2”.

How am I reacting, qua Bipolar patient? It’s a mixed bag. In the first 48 hours after the scope, it felt like I was in a bad dream and was going to wake up relieved. No such luck. Since then, on the one hand, I have been pessimistic. Granted, my surgeon told us that – assuming I indeed am merely at “stage 2”, without much spreading – nowadays there’s a 40% cure rate for my kind of cancer. It was only 20% just a few years ago. That sounds like promising news. Unsurprisingly given my mental illness, however, I don’t really believe that I’ll get better. I’m expecting the worst. On the other hand, I’m constantly saying to myself, in the face of such catastrophizing: “Today, don’t put the cart before the horse. Today, you are enjoying life”. And I’m remaining calm. Another mixed bag: I’m grateful that my employer reacted rapidly and found other people to teach my courses; I’m disappointed, though, that I won’t be teaching, as I was really excited about the three classes I was scheduled to do. Keeping busy with a meaningful activity like teaching really makes a difference to my mental well-being. I’m even more disappointed that, because of the planned treatment regime, I likely won’t be able to get away from Canada’s winter this year. All travel plans are presently on hold.

Let’s return to where I began. After half a dozen years of my Bipolar being totally out of control, in May 2024 my medical team finally found a 1960s-era drug that seemed to help, and I returned to work full-time in May 2025. Teaching was going well. I was writing philosophy, even authoring stuff by myself. I was enjoying reading, fishing, traveling, etc. “Things were sorting themselves out”. Along comes the Hardyesque diagnosis: long/short, the statistics for my specific sub-variety of cancer suggest that, most likely, it will eventually kill me, albeit not for quite some time. It feels like Jude the Obscure.

P.S. In the spirit of linguistics and philosophy of language, here’s a concluding thought on cancer and English in the 21^st Century. In our Anglo culture, we have set phrases that we say when a loved one dies: “My condolences” or “I’m so sorry for your loss”. It seems to me that we don’t have such canned wording for when a person reveals that they may be really, really sick. As a result, I’ve noted that plenty of otherwise articulate people are essentially struck dumb when I share my diagnosis. My psychotherapist has stressed to me that, given our linguistic practices in English, this doesn’t mean that they are unfeeling or unconcerned. They’re simply at a loss for words. So, I get it readers: you may not know what to say. That’s okay. Just send good vibes.