Hello, Hoddlers. I asked Fitzie to take a day off from Hoddling today because it’s about time I’ve given a personal update.
One week from tomorrow on October 29, I’ll celebrate 10 years as managing editor of Cartilage Free Captain. I can hardly believe it either. I agreed to take over for Kim expecting that I’d be in charge for a couple of years before gracefully bowing out and becoming Editor Emeritus, passing the torch to a newer, younger generation of Spurs bloggers. I never in my wildest dreams expected that I’d still be going at it a decade later, older, (assumedly) wiser, and battle-tested with the comment moderation scars to prove it. Nor did I expect that a decade would go by and Spurs STILL haven’t won a trophy.
It’s wild.
But while that milestone is significant, it’s not why I’m writing today.
Many of you know that since February I’ve been experiencing some health issues. At first I made a concerted effort to keep it off the blog — Carty Free isn’t about me and never has been — but people know, and I’ve made references to it in the comments here and there.
So let’s just put it out there — this past February, as a “gentleman of a certain age,” I had my first ever colonoscopy. It revealed something big, that couldn’t be removed by conventional means. To make a very long story short, in May I had a preventative colon resection surgery, and the pathology eventually came back as a surprise stage IV colon cancer with metastatic spread to my liver. Over the past few months I’ve been undergoing chemotherapy to stop the cancer from spreading anywhere else while my oncologists and I have been talking about options.
One of those options happens tomorrow. On Tuesday I will undergo my second major surgery in five months to remove the section of my liver that has the two cancerous lesions. Depending on the kind of surgery I end up having (laparoscopic vs. open) if it’s successful I could either spend a couple of days in the hospital or up to a week, with several additional weeks recuperating at home.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that my last scan did not show any spread beyond the liver, with the lesions responding to chemo. So this surgery I’m about to have has the potential, with a few more post-recovery rounds of chemotherapy, to be curative.
In many ways I’m very lucky, and am in good hands with doctors I trust completely. The past nine months have been among the most challenging and difficult of my life, and unlike many I have a positive prognosis and a path towards a full recovery. But it’s still major surgery with all the risks and complications that go along with it. If you want more details, I have a Caring Bridge blog where I’ve been writing about my cancer journey — it’s very different writing to blogging about Tottenham Hotspur, but it’s still me and will give you all the publicly-available info that I’m willing to share with friends, family, and others.
What does this mean for the blog? Well, it’s in good hands. Matty, Sebastian, Kim and the staff will keep things going in my absence, however long that is before I feel recovered enough to type coherently about Spurs — maybe a week? Maybe longer. I’ll probably miss a few matches. Like in May, that will probably mean a couple of games without Community Player Ratings articles or a few features that you’ve come to expect from the site. But the lights won’t go dark, even if I do for a little while.
I want to be clear — I’m okay. I’m positive about where I’m at right now and the path forward. I remain incredibly optimistic about this procedure, my prognosis, and my odds of recovery. The only advice I have for all of you is this: get your preventative maintenance done, whatever that may be. Colonoscopies aren’t fun, but colon cancer is so much worse. If your doctor tells you to get one, have it done. If you identify as male, check your testicles. If you identify as female, stay up to date with your breast exams. Follow your doctor’s advice, do your preventative maintenance, and for God’s sake don’t put any of it off. They caught my cancer on my very first colonoscopy, one I had put off for a year. Had I not done it this time at the urging of my wife, my prognosis might have been significantly worse. If reading this article means one person catches potential cancer before it develops, then all of the crap I’ve gone through the past nine months will have been worth it.
This blog and its community means more to me than any of you will ever know. Thanks for reading, and I can’t wait until I’m back typing garbage Tottenham takes and player ratings themes that make everyone yell at me.
COYS.
Dustin’s track of the day: The Foggy Dew, by Ye Vagabonds