Cancer is one of the most common diseases of our age, and yet those who face it rarely know what’s about to happen to them beyond the broadest terms. “Cancer up Close” is an open recount of Michele Goncalves’s cancer journey from pre-diagnosis to life after treatment.
As I was being wheeled into the operating room on the day of my surgery, I was clear that when I would wake, I’d have an ileostomy (and accompanying bag) installed, pain in my abdomen, and a few small, round scars along my waistline from the laparoscopic instruments. Yet, no matter how informed I was intellectually, I underestimated how difficult my recovery was going to be physically.
