12/4/25 - Living with Cancer

Well...as the picture suggests, I was back in for more chemo this week. Turns out this cancer was not quite done with its complications!

About a month ago, I was getting my 3-month check-up. Blood work looked great and shows some good signs that my immune system is working better than before all this started. I also had a CT scan which showed that some residual nodules in my right lung had grown quite a bit in the relatively short time off chemo, suggesting a lung metastasis.

After a lung biopsy (and slightly punctured lung in the process), we confirmed the colon cancer had metastasized to the lung. Feeling like we had reached a new stage of disease, we went deep down the path of researching different approaches (chemo, surgery, radiation, ablation, turning off genes, neuromodulation, etc.), different doctors, trials, etc. In that process, I read someone in reference to trials saying it's good to have "planes on the runway." And that's what it felt like I was doing...building relationships, new knowledge, and possible pathways that could be used, or not, in the near term or long term.

It's difficult to get any of these options up and running quickly, so hopefully having them somewhat teed up will make it easier to hit go if we need to. That's the theory at least!

Ultimately I settled on a new chemo protocol that accounts for what we know my body responds to, and had my first infusion on Tuesday. It's an adventure trying to understand new side effects and how to proactively get ahead of the bad ones. I'm batting around .500 so far.

Chemo will be just the starting point with the goal being to shrink or at least stop growth of the lung mets. Then we can explore a range of options at that point to try and get rid of what's left (e.g. surgery, radiation, ablation, etc.). Feels like we have a range of options queued up.

So we are back on this ride. Or maybe we were never really off of it. It certainly was a downer to get the news just a few months after ringing the bell and getting a clear PET scan. All the fears get kicked up again.

It can feel like you reach a new height only to find a new depth.

And maybe that's what a deeply experienced life just is. It's not one OR the other...it's all of it. I appreciate the heights through knowing the depths. And the heights can be the simplest of moments too through knowing the deeper depths.

I try and get to a Contemplative Prayer group at my church, and so very much enjoy the space my friend Jan creates for us in the little chapel we gather in. She usually brings a text for us to connect with, and, in the middle of all my news of more cancer, she brought just the text I needed to see.

It was from Cynthia Bourgeault's Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God. In it she writes:

"This kind of hope, mystical hope, is not tied to a good outcome to the future. It lives a life of its own, seemingly without reference to external circumstances and conditions. It has something to do with presence - the immediate experience of being met, held in communion, by something intimately at hand. It bears fruit within us at the pyschological level in the sensations of strength, joy, and satisfaction: an unbearable lightness of being. But mysteriously, rather than deriving these gifts from outward expectations being met, it seems to produce them from within."

I'm grateful to get moments of presence in all this, a deep sense of being held and loved deeply. And I only hope to offer that to others as best I can too.

I've met a friend, Julie, through connecting around complicated colon cancers. Julie is so amazingly generous with sharing her vast wisdom with so many on all things colon cancer....all while going through a very complex colon cancer journey herself. She's one of the many, be they nurses, friends, family, or coworkers, that help shoulder the weight of this, giving me the gift of being "held in communion."

And my daily meditation helps me to quiet down my chaotic mind while on this roller coaster. I appreciated a recent teacher's suggestion that, rather than trying to hold stillness in yourself, to let the stillness hold you. In my better moments, I find presence there and that mystical hope.

Thanks in advance for your kind words, prayers and good mojo...and for being our community. Even though I feel like crap in this moment, writing this all down makes me also feel like the luckiest dude on earth.

With much love...

Matt