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.
To say that I was dreading getting radiation to treat my cancer is a severe understatement. I had no idea what to expect. My radiation oncologist told me that I’d need 5 1/2 weeks of radiation and chemo pills every weekday. This regimen would attempt to kill and/or shrink my stage 3 rectal tumor, and eradicate any cancer in the surrounding rectal lymph nodes. Was it going to hurt? How sick was I going to get from it? I didn’t know, but it all sounded awful.
