2020 Is a Literal Pain in My Ass — Finding Out I Have Cancer During a Pandemic Was Not Part of the Plan.

Finding out you have cancer is something I hope no one reading this will ever have to deal with. 

Finding out that you have cancer during the middle of a pandemic… well, that is a once in a lifetime crappy hand of cards. 

I’ll start off by saying that my doctors have told me the majority of people with my type of cancer recover with treatment. Specifically, my chemo oncologist said that he has NEVER had a patient not respond well to the type of treatment they’re doing for me. 

I just wanted to share that right away before I go into details. 

As I said, 2020 is a literal pain my butt: I have stage III anal cancer. 

Squamous cell carcinoma. It is a type of skin cancer that developed on the inner layer of my anus. It is derived from having HPV in my early 20s, which is apparently very common (for anyone who doesn’t know much about HPV, about 80% of college kids used to get it, and now there is a vaccine for it). Granted, my type of cancer is not that common. 

For anyone who wants to understand the technical side of cancer, it’s T4 N2; the T refers to the size and extent of the main tumor, 4 being the highest. The N refers to the number of nearby lymph nodes that have cancer (my cancer spread to two small lymph nodes near the main tumor). 

Cancer has not spread far, so that is really good. But the size of the tumor (the size of an egg) makes it a Stage III. My doctors have said over and over again that I have a type of cancer that responds really well to treatment (for most people), which I just want to reiterate in this blog post—both for myself, and everyone reading.

Treatment for anal cancer involves chemo and radiation—but I am not going to lose my hair. 

I learned more about my treatment on a video chat with my new oncology doctor while camping. As soon as she told me the chemo I’m getting doesn’t cause hair loss, my entire body collectively took a sigh of relief. I started bawling. Whether you think worrying about losing all of your hair to chemo is vain or not, it was a sense of relief. 

Loren Hansen took these photos with my family the day before I found out details about my treatment - when I thought chemo meant I would be losing my hair - so I could get one last photoshoot before I lost my hair (and before I started to feel sick).

The relief came from my thought that keeping my hair indicates that the treatment isn’t as invasive as it could be; and this makes me feel like I can handle going through the next few months. (Also, I had shorter hair when I was 21 due to a highlighting accident that burned off some of my hair, and I don’t look good as a short-haired person. Many people can pull it off beautifully, but not me.)

Treatment: Six weeks, Monday through Friday of 15-minute radiation treatments, combined with a chemo pill—meaning that my August and September are going to involve a lot of rest, a lot of doctor appointments, and probably a lot of tears. 

Also, 6+ weeks of no wine, though they did say that a sip or two here and there is okay. ❤️

My job for the duration of my treatment is to make sure I am as healthy as possible and keeping my immune system working by eating really good food, drinking lots of water, keeping my stress down (through acupuncture and oncology massage), and moderately exercising. 

My symptoms will be progressive with treatments, so during the first few weeks, I may be a little bit sleepy but still able to work here and there (just a bit, nothing overwhelming), help watch Ryeson (kinda), etc. But typical symptoms like nausea, tiredness, and pain will increase the more treatments I get. 

I am a planner at heart—even when it comes to my anal cancer 

Over the next few weeks we have friends and family coming to help out (with both me and Ryeson - though he is back in preschool during the weekdays). They are taking COVID tests before they come to see us because I am now officially immunocompromised (Ryeson always has been because of his cystic fibrosis.) 

I have spent the last week creating calendars, spreadsheets, Google Docs on the specifics, and I even found a cancer-oriented day planner that I was excited to find on Amazon. I will be able to keep track of appointments, medication, how I am feeling, but also be able to write down things I am grateful for - to find some happiness in some pretty crappy days. 

I don’t know what life is going to look like after my treatment, but I am very optimistic. ❤️

I’m already making some plans for what my business is going to look like post-treatments, and also for after this wave of COVID dissipates. I’m definitely not rushing out to eat at a restaurant or taste wine at a winery, but I do miss seeing everyone in person.

Someday we will get back to that.

Why I chose to let everyone know about my anal cancer:

I wrestled with it for a little bit because it’s embarrassing—out of all the places to get cancer, it’s definitely not the most flattering. Originally I didn’t want to tell anyone, but I also know that speaking up and normalizing things (like talking about cancer in your butt) can hopefully inspire people to be more proactive in going to see the doctor when they have symptoms like hemorrhoids and pain down there (or any type of pain really). Also, a big part of my own marketing and advice is for people to be vulnerable and open with their own customers, and I've always been a big fan of practicing what I preach. 

Didn’t Farrah Fawcett die of anal cancer? 

Yes, in fact, she did. While normally I would have no problem being compared to Farah Fawcett, this instance is not so fun. She ignored her symptoms for a long time, and while I feel I ignored mine for a little bit because I was too embarrassed or thought that the hemorrhoids would go away, I ended up forcing my doctors to see me during a pandemic because I knew there was something wrong. Hopefully catching it somewhat early is going to help me in the long run. Here is more on her story with anal cancer: closer-look-at-the-cancer-that-claimed-farrah-fawcett/

Talking symptoms of anal cancer:

Since we are talking about ignoring symptoms and how horrible that could be, I’ll tell you my story. This question keeps coming up, so why not start from the beginning? Just before the shelter-in-place was ordered, I had hemorrhoids. I didn't really think much of them; I also had them when Rye was born and they went away. I thought they would again.

They didn't.

And, honestly, I was embarrassed to go to the doctor right away, but eventually, I contacted Kaiser and had a series of video chats with doctors who gave me different ways of treating the hemorrhoids. I knew it was a different type of pain than what I experienced with the hemorrhoids I had after Rye was born, but I still thought that could be the issue.

It eventually hurt so much that I insisted my doctors meet me in person. In-person visits still weren’t common in early June due to the pandemic. I had to call and transfer over to a few advice nurses, but I eventually got a doctor's appointment with my new gynecologist. She quickly realized it was more than just hemorrhoids. From there I quickly had a CT scan, an MRI on my pelvis, a COVID test, a colonoscopy, a biopsy, then another CT scan on my chest, and an MRI specifically on my rectum. Once the biopsy determined that I had cancerous cells, they did a PET scan, which finally determined that I have two areas of cancer, both in my pelvis.

Telling my story about anal cancer

I know this is probably too much information. That’s me, I like to paint a pretty story... And I have a type of skin cancer that’s on the inner layers of my butt, so that’s my story.

If this blog leaves you with any takeaways, I hope it’s the necessity of learning more about your body and going to see a doctor any time something feels off. It’s better to be safe than sorry. 

And please know I understand the privilege that I have with good healthcare via my husband’s job, even during a time in which I lost several clients/writing gigs due to COVID-19 hitting the hospitality industry. This is another example of why universal healthcare for the United States is so important: we ALL DESERVE to go to the doctor when we feel like something is off…not just a few of us who can afford it.

BTW, I am not shying away from talking about any of this, so if you have any questions or simply want to say hi, connect with me @sharayray. I do ask you to respect my request for everyone to not bring up any type of potential “cures” through food, prayer, etc., and please refrain from telling me about how your cousin had cancer and beat it, or something of that nature. I'm working very closely with my doctors and that's what I'm focused on, not stories about other people. Thank you. 

I’ll leave this blog post with this image my friend Craig posted on my Facebook page. ❤️ The plan post-all-of-this is to come back even stronger with whatever I decide to do. It’s a new beginning.

Images were taken by Loren Hansen Photography in Petaluma (please wear your masks!)

Update: Here is a blog post I wrote about Tips for Anal Cancer Treatments.