Another Face in the Crowd: Life in the Face of Cancer - vol 3

Cancer feels like a sort of never-ending presence in my life now. It hangs like a shadow over almost everything but not necessarily to a degree that it impacts my life. I just recognize it now. I acknowledge it. Before, it was something far away. A thing that I knew of but not a thing that directly interfered with me or with what I want to do with my life. There are still certain times when I get hit with side-effects of the radiation (despite it being a good four-to-five months post-radiation). I'll start to feel dizzy out of nowhere or my appetite will tank and I just won't feel like eating. Or there will be a day where I might not want to get out of bed.

But for the most part, I can still push myself past all that and live a mostly normal existence.

It sounds bad, putting it that way, but it's what it feels like sometimes. It feels like I am living but not at where I used to be. Mostly, I just ignore it. I have a lot of experience with that. Having had my foot crushed and then later amputated, I gained the ability to exist even though there were certain things that were tougher now. That was a very rough point in my life but I will go over that in a future series. A different one from this.

The point is that I know how to keep going. And I got really good at it.

I haven't gone over some of the more important aspects of my diagnosis. For starters, I mentioned the biopsy but haven't explained yet what the results of that test were - well except for the fact that it came back cancerous. I eventually was released and a few days later, the results came in to MyChart. Of course I looked them over (and yes, I looked them over before speaking to the doctor). I couldn't really stop myself even though the doctor advised against doing that. I took all the information that was in that report and because most of it was medical jargon that I wasn't wholly familiar with, I decided to put AI to good use. I copied it all and pasted into Google's AI engine, Gemini, and asked it to translate everything to more simple terms.

Now, I am not a big fan of AI generally but even I have to admit, it has its uses. It did exactly what I asked and provided a translation. The biggest take away from it was the fact that I now had a name for the type of cancer I got.

Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma.

Here's a definition for those of you who haven't heard of this particular type of cancer. I was also squarely in that realm as well but let me tell you, I definitely know it now.

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (or ACC) is a rare, slow-growing, but persistent form of adenocarcinoma (cancer that begins in glandular tissues). While it can occur in various parts of the body, it is most commonly found in the salivary glands of the head and neck. Mine, however, didn't present in any glands. Again, my tumor grew in my sinuses and had likely been growing there for a very long time. No one is quite sure how long, but due to its slow-growing nature, it could've been in there for a year, five years, maybe even as much as ten.

It is also rare. Rare enough that there isn't much known about it. Thankfully, though, my doctors still knew what they had to do. They excised the tumor via surgery and then sent me to Ohio State University's Proton Radiation treatment center to kill whatever was left.

I am pleased to announce that at this time, there is no evidence of disease. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I am out of the woods. Another characteristic of ACC is its tendency to reoccur. While I might be free of cancer right now, I will need to be monitored for the rest of my life to make sure it never comes back.

I know I mentioned before that I would go over the treatments and while I sort of mentioned them a little in this post, I didn't go into as much detail as I intended. I might do that in the next volume.

Stay tuned!