The first day of the rest of my life.

I hadn’t been feeling good for a few weeks.

If I look back and reflect I guess I could say I’d been feeling unusually tired for the last couple months. It felt like this weird combination of feeling like I was walking through molasses, feeling sluggish, and generally not feeling like myself at when I worked out. I stopped drinking on February 16th and usually when I do that my body is flooded with energy and I lose a little bit of weight but that also wasn’t happening. I just had this general feeling of meh.

In early March I went to Mexico for a girls trip and came home with a nasty sinus infection. Normally I’m not the type of person to go to the doctor unless I am really sick but I didn’t want to mess around so I left with a prescription for Doxycycline and went home. Within about a week the stomach pain started.

The pain wasn’t normal. It was this weird upper abdomen pain below my ribs and my stomach was swelled up and hard as if someone had implanted a grapefruit in my upper belly. I went to my doctor and they drew blood. A day later my nurse called and asked me if I had been binge drinking in Mexico. My liver enzymes were unusually high. I hadn’t had alcohol since February and I knew it wasn’t that so I asked, “could the antibiotics have caused this?” The nurse said, “no, we need to get you in for an abdominal ultrasound to see what’s going on and find out what might be causing this damage.”

On April 12, 2019 I went in for my ultrasound at 9:30 AM. By 2:30 PM my doctor called me. She said they found multiple lesions on my liver which was highly indicative of something called metastatic liver disease. I had a million questions but then she said,

“You have cancer.”

I couldn’t process it. I sat there stunned until I just started crying while she explained that it is highly unusual to start with liver cancer. I didn’t know this but cancer usually starts somewhere else in the human body and if/when it metastasizes it’s common for it to show up in the liver which is why my enzymes were probably elevated. The next step was a CT scan.

I’ve never had a CT scan before. My friend Megan told me the weirdest part about the experience was feeling like you had to pee when they put the injection in you. For me it was being laid down on a hard table and having the lab technician ask me to put my arms above my head for the injection. As if my arms were being bound to this new reality of what was to become my life. A series of tests, machines, doctors, and a complete loss of control.

When the doctor called me later I was mentally prepared for the worst. I imagined a call where I was told that I had tumors covering my entire body and only a few weeks to live. When she told me I had colon cancer my fear turned to relief before I burst into tears again and I was flooded with thoughts.

I am 37 years old.

Colon cancer is supposed to be an old person’s disease.

I am not done yet.

Am I going to lost my hair?

This is my fault.

What is this going to do to my husband?

I have an alien growing inside me.

Is it going to hurt?

But like with any pain or radical change emotions and thoughts evolve over time. I’m not going to lie and said my emotions over the last week haven’t been a total roller coaster because they have. I’ll be fine and then I’ll feel a flood and start crying. I’m scared, terrified actually, not because I am afraid of what will happen in the future but because I must transform and adapt to face this. I’m scared of what I don’t know but I know I have the capacity to get through this.

For those of you who know me you know I am not really shy for words. Other than some stomach pain a few weeks before my actual diagnosis I had no symptoms. I am young and healthy. In fact, some might argue I am more dogmatic about my health and fitness than I probably should be. Fact is, I learned this week that cancer doesn’t discriminate and that even if you do everything “right” you could still draw an unlucky hand.

So rather than crawl into a hole and suffer I decided I wanted to share my journey with others. Many in my generation are still healthy yet it would be unrealistic to think some of us won’t get sick as we age. If my education and chronicling of this process can help others better understand what to expect if they ever have to deal with this then I feel like what I have done has made a positive impact. As long as I am physically able I will be posting blogs, videos, and notes to document my experience. I will also use this site as a landing page to other pages that I set-up along the way.

The purpose of this project is to help inspire hope. Hope in a shared experience with others, hope for a higher purpose, hope to illustrate the reality of cancer before 40, and hope that I can share and give back to others as long as I can. If nothing else I can revel in the fact that I am owning my millennial San Franciscoite ways, building a website, sucking it up, and handling this like the tough motherfucker I know I am.

-Brynn