When your husband gets a colon cancer diagnosis, time is an obsession.
First, time shockingly stops. It feels like minutes between each breath.
Recommended Videos
Then the hours race.
Will we have enough time?
As the life clock ticked, my husband Jamie and I found we had a lot of time to wait, think and worry. Time sitting in doctors’ offices waiting to be seen. Hours each week in treatment rooms. Time waiting for operations. Time in recovery rooms. Time flying around the country for second, third opinions and trials.
In that time, we talked a lot about how Jamie wanted to raise awareness of colorectal cancer and funding for early screenings. He also wanted to advocate for young colon cancer patients like himself.
He’d start off with, “When we get through this..” and he always believed he would. But even with the best medicine and doctors in the world, cancer is difficult. It adapts. And it is deadly.
Six days before he died on August 1, 2020, Jamie went on the radio for the last time. I walked him down to the basement where his broadcast equipment was. We had a stash of popsicles for his dry throat, and an ice water with a straw. I begged him to write something down, in case he was at a loss for words. He shook his head and said “I’ve got it.”
Of course, he did.
He had 19 months from diagnosis to that day to think about what to say, and just 10 minutes of strength to get it out. He asked people to get a colonoscopy, to know their family history, to cherish their health. He didn’t want anyone else to have to go through what he did. Jamie vowed to keep fighting, which he did until he died.
For the last two and a half years since his death, I’ve heard from countless people who got colonoscopies because of Jamie. I’ve heard from doctors who tell me stories of people requesting screening because of Jamie. I’ve heard from patients fighting the cancer those colonoscopies found.
I know his powerful message is still making a difference.
We are now at the end of Colorectal Cancer Awareness month. Here at Local 4, we’ve worked to help you understand your risk for CRC, the testing involved and symptoms to watch for.
Elissa Robinson shared with me her fight with colorectal cancer, diagnosed at only 37.
Dr. Frank McGeorge showed us how easy the Cologuard test can be, for those who haven’t undergone a colonoscopy. Also the importance of getting screened starting at age 45, with chief of colon and rectal surgery at Corewell Health Dr. Harry Wasvary. (Dr. Wasvary was one of Jamie’s docs)
Our executive producer of special projects, Meaghan St. Pierre, chronicled her first colonoscopy in this blog post.
So thank you for helping spread the word, and advocating with me in Jamie’s memory. Make that colonoscopy appointment, talk to your doctor, get a plan in place. Colorectal cancer is treatable when caught in the early stages.
I wish we had that time back, the waiting room conversations, the long chemo days. It is a painful reminder there are no guarantees. But the good memories remain – and acute awareness to be grateful for the time that we have today.
To all the CRC caregivers and patients… I see you, I walk with you.
To Life! CM