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Is today one of the most important days of your life?

Is today one of the most important days of your life? My day so far has been nothing out of the ordinary. I drove to work since I’m racing the track tonight. I’ve stared at graphs, read through some logs, and done other work things that are completely useless outside of these four walls. If I don’t do my job, I get fired. So what? I can find a new job and still live a normal life.

Earlier this month, out of left field, Sarah’s brother-in-law, Chris, was diagnosed with colon cancer. This test lead to that test which lead to finding that the cancer spread to the lymph nodes and possibly to the liver (colon cancer’s second favorite target). I say possibly the liver because x-rays show (I think) 12 spots that are believed to be tumors.

At about 1pm this afternoon, Chris’ life will physically change forever. He is having surgery to have about 12 inches of his colon removed, several lymph nodes will be coming out as well, and a biopsy will be done on the spots on his liver. (and here I’m bitching about an hour drive to the track.)

After he recovers from getting his ass kicked in this surgery, he’ll get his ass kicked and re-kicked through 6 rounds of, well, ass kicking chemo. After that they will see what the effect of the chemo was on the tumors in the liver and I’m sure they will have some sort of game plan for that. Probably some sort of ass kicking surgery.

Two weeks ago family and friends got together and worked out a schedule of who will be there during Chris’ recovery to help out as much as possible. It’s not just operations and medicine that helps heal, but knowing there is a caring support group there to get through difficult times is probably the best medicine.

By the way, Chris is only 39, married (obviously to Sarah’s sister), and has two boys 5 ½ and 4.

Check out his blog.

Comments

Meow said…
You never know what life is gonna' hand you from one week to the next. So easy to get caught up in life's little annoyances. All you can really do is try to make sure that you convey the BEST of yourself to people because you just can't assume that they'll be around next week.
Sorry to hear it BTW....
2:34 PM
Strats said…
You forgot to mention that Chris is a super cool guy, and I think it's safe to say that the two of us love him like a brother. It's super scary, but he has the most amazing positive attitude, so if anyone call pull through this, it's him.

I should also mention that he has quite a few connections to cycling, besides just me and Pete. He works with Duke at a company that sponsors the Kelly Benefits team, and Chris helped do a bunch of graphics for the Capitol Crit last weekend. Oh, and he had that one memorable day in the feed zone for me and GP back at the old State RR course.
3:02 PM
Pete said…
Yep, Chris was so excited to be in the feed zone for the state RR a few years ago that he watched "Waterboy" no less than 10 times. Or maybe not at all, I lost track.
3:18 PM
Lunatic Biker said…
Well written, Pete.
11:19 AM
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