In this third podcast about his cancer journey, one of our team, Chris Bateman, shares the insights and awakenings his recent diagnosis and treatment have evoked in him after nearly 20 years as a healthcare journalist.
In case you missed Episode 2, click here.
Hi, this is Chris Bateman again with my third podcast about my cancer survivorship. A quick reprise; Iām a freelance healthcare journalist by trade, a husband and father to two pre-teenage daughters, a fly-fisherman, andā¦ I have esophageal cancer.
Last time I alluded to the softer, more spiritual side that emerges, almost unbidden, when you face a life-threatening disease – and how Iām managing my emotions and thoughts. Right now, March 5th, 2020, Iām entering my second, three-month stint of chemo-therapy, prompted by unexpected pulmonary emboli that showed up in a CT scan conducted to check on my progress.
Weāve handled that, but what it means is that my op has to be postponed to somewhere between July and September. Once weād recovered from the shock of this curved ball, that dull buzz of fear morphed into relief as blood-thinning treatment began working. Yet, I can feel my shoulders sagging as I think of going through the fatigue from chemo all over again. For all I know the tumor hasnāt shrunk. The CT scan was inconclusive because inflammation is masking it. I hold on to my bariatric surgeon, Dr Wimpie Odendaalās confident suspicion that under that swelling the tumor has in fact shrunk. And Iām reassured by the oncologist, Dr Krystyna Marszalekās feedback that it hasnāt grown and thereās certainly no spread. What I got though, was blood clots on the lung. So, we havenāt exactly stumbled backwards shouting progress, but neither have we advanced too far. I was all psyched up for the operation ā a 4-6-hour affair to remove and replace my esophagus, using most of my stomach. I was scared, sure, but wanting it to be over so I could start the long haul back to health and hopefully full cure. Now thereās time for those shadowy thoughts to run amok again.
The other night in kind of a waking dream, I imagined myself on the operating table, light heartedly (but dead-seriously) chatting to my gloved and masked anesthetist and surgeon as they prepared for my lengthy key-hole surgery;
āYou do your best work guys and I promise Iāll live my best life!ā I said.
Iāve alluded previously to our propensity to treat doctors like Gods and here I was bargaining with them for a gold-standard outcome. I realized with a start, that I was actually bargaining with God, not the doctors. The sacred trade-off went something like this; āYou let me live and I promise Iāll be the best damn human being you could imagine!ā
Some tall order! I wonder what the best human being God can imagine would even look like?
But it got me thinking; why wait until Iām in fear of my last mortal moment to decide to live my best life? God alone knows when Iāll die. All I know is that itās inevitable ā sometime, hopefully as far in the future as possible! And right there, I think, is where cancer survivors tap into the gratitude for this amazing gift of life we have, and itās ever-renewable potential.
When I overlay that awakening with my privilege of access to top class medicine plus being able to afford health insurance, Iām deeply humbled – and saddened. The overwhelming majority of our population do not enjoy these privileges. The stories public sector oncologists tell me, especially around children from breadline-living families and from rural areas, are heart-breaking.
One oncologist at Chris Hani Baragwanath tertiary hospital says 75% of lower-income family children she sees present late, their cancer far advanced. She estimates that a full 10% of them are treatment-futile. All she and her colleagues can do is palliate. For those still treatable, late presentation makes already-aggressive chemotherapy a worse ordeal.
The odds are stacked heavily against them; transport to treatment is expensive, the healing process is poorly understood and often when a family hears whatās being proposed, they disappear and the children donāt come back to finish treatment. There are no scanners for cancer diagnosis in the rural areas where these children often live – let alone oncologists or neurosurgeons. More cancer awareness programs are crucial. In 2001, the year after an epidemiologist did a six-month outreach cancer awareness program in the rural areas of Gauteng and the North-West Province paediatric, cancer cases at Chris Hani Baragwanath from those areas doubled ā all in Stages 3 or 4. Itās estimated that half of all children with cancer in South Africa are never diagnosed1.
I know this is supposed to be an intensely personal podcast series, but Iād be remiss if I didnāt place my challenge in the wider societal context. Thereās no denying it; the personal is political.
So, as I consider taking a break from this podcast to sleep off some chemo fatigue, I think of the professional caregivers who work far longer hours than I, often in very challenging conditions, to alleviate what cancer survivors like myself face. By an accident of birth, diagnosis and privilege, Iām getting off lightly.
In my next podcast Iāll tell you exactly how theyāre going to do my operation, (I mean how do you remove a stomach via key-hole surgery for goodness sake!), How Iāll adapt to having a new āslukdermā (osephagus), and update you on any new developments and insights. Plus, Iāll tell you why I trust my surgeon so implicitly and why holistic cancer care is so powerful.
Had I the gift of foresight, I would know what further gifts and gremlins await me, but that would surely ruin the anticipation! Until next time, this is Chris Bateman daring to say; āSobonanaā (Zulu for weāll see one other again).
- https://www.cansa.org.za/files/2017/09/2017-CANSA-PPT-Childhood-Cancer-Awareness-ENG.pdf Ref; ref. Stefan, D.C., Kruger, M. 2015
