With the doors to Nationwide Arena still closed, it's disappointing to not be able to come together and bond over such stories right now. And as I think about it, it's hard to believe how much has changed since that November night for all of us.
I also didn't know on that night that by the next time the Blue Jackets staged a Hockey Fights Cancer Night, I'd have a new story to tell.
My own. In November, I was diagnosed with colon cancer.
It all started one Sunday morning in mid-October. I had been feeling a bit off physically for a couple of weeks, but I can't say there were any major alarm bells ringing. But as I woke up that morning and started to stretch my legs a bit, and when I stretched a certain way, I noticed something out of the ordinary -- an unnatural growth in my abdomen that was visible to the naked eye and felt tender to the touch.
It was pretty clear this was nothing to fool around with. I was at the doctor two days later, which kickstarted a battery of tests. About a week after my initial appointment, I had a CT scan, and when my phone rang before 9 a.m. the day after the scan and an OhioHealth number was on the screen, I knew it probably wasn't a good sign.
From there, it's been a bit of a whirlwind. My doctor scheduled surgery Nov. 12 -- my late mother's birthday, a comforting sign from above if there ever was one -- to remove what turned out to be a baseball-sized growth that was almost completely blocking my colon. I started chemotherapy right around the first of the year and will hopefully be done in mid-March, though I suppose nothing is set in stone.
So how am I doing? When people ask, I usually respond "so far, so good," and that's the truth. The surgery went well, as did the recovery from that, and I have a cool new scar to go with the one from the broken leg I suffered on the hockey rink back in 2013.
I wouldn't recommend chemotherapy if you don't have to do it, but I'm surviving well enough. The side effects are real and they are annoying, but I know it could be a ton worse. As far as a long-term prognosis, I think things are looking pretty good, and I keep telling people it's gonna take a lot more than this to get rid of me. As much as I felt like I was becoming old and out of shape over the years, being young and in shape has been a blessing through all of this.
I can't thank the people I know through hockey enough for the support I've gotten so far. Everyone I work with on a daily basis -- close coworkers, the entire CBJ staff, other media members and team broadcasters -- has been incredible. The organization has been there for me for whatever I've needed, which is a mental weight lifted off my shoulders. And to have hockey to watch and report on has been a blessing over the past couple of weeks, a return to normalcy I've cherished.
And on a weird note, being around sports for my entire life has helped me mentally tackle this challenge. If there's one thing you hear in a locker room, it's that you can't focus on how difficult or unfair the challenge is, you simply have to try to attack it. The old "one day at a time" mentality is a cliché, but it's true. Maybe I'm just being naïve, but I haven't had one woe-is-me day to this point, focusing only on what I can control as I go through this whole thing.
It's my sincere hope when we do Hockey Fights Cancer Night a season from now, things will be as back to normal as they can be and we can do this event together. If there's anything I've learned over the past few months and years, we're all a hockey family, and we'll be there for each other through the highs and the lows. And to be honest, we're all due a lot more highs than lows over the near future.
