I’m returning to an old blog I had set up over a decade ago, to share observations about the stage 3 rectal cancer diagnosis that I received on Apr 2, 2024.

Currently I am about halfway through daily (M-F) chemoradiation treatment at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle. Fortunately I don’t live far from there — the drive is around 12-15 minutes — so I am able to accommodate these daily afternoon visits in my work schedule.

As more folks learn about this — my colleagues, extended family members, and friends I have made throughout many chapters in my life — I feel the need to provide more of a regular cadence of updates. I have been attempting this through a google doc, but I’m going to switch to this medium and see how it goes.

So, current update! Chemoradiation is the first act of what may be three acts to my cancer treatment saga. This act will wrap up on June 28, and then there will be scans to see how things look. Act Two, to start sometime late July, will be IV chemo, which will last 3-4 months. The expectation is that side effects will be more extreme during that period. Just to clarify, currently, I’m doing chemo via pills, taken at home. My oncologists described this phase as “baby chemo” compared with the real stuff coming later this summer.

It is not yet certain whether there will be an Act Three; this depends on how things are looking at the end of Act Two (has the tumor shrunk in size, etc). My understanding is that for 20% of “patients like me,” the first two acts are enough — and you then proceed into Watch-and-wait mode. The remaining 80% move on to Act Three: surgery. More on that to come in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, here’s a little window into my world — this past Sunday evening, I prepared for the week by getting all my chemo pills organized. These are indeed hazardous; when I handle a lot of pills, like on Sunday, I wear disposable gloves. When I actually take the pills, in the mornings and evenings, I wash my hands thoroughly afterwards. It is indeed a strange thought to intentionally consume hazardous material — but the goal is to destroy as much of the cancer as possible, in the process.

I’ll do my best to provide updates more frequently here. I have all sorts of observations to share, from the mundane to perhaps somewhat profound (inasmuch as a life-threatening disease can just shift you into a new way of looking at the world).