November 7, 2019 is a date permanently burned into my memory—the moment my life split cleanly into two eras: BBC—Before Bowel Cancer—and everything that followed. A heavy, stunned silence filled the car as my husband and I slowly exited the hospital parking lot in Melbourne. Minutes earlier, I had sat hunched forward, head in my hands, listening as a highly respected gastrointestinal surgeon calmly confirmed what I had feared most. A biopsy had revealed that the large mass in my colon was cancerous. Worse still, a CT scan showed the disease had already spread to my liver.
“I’m afraid that means it’s stage-four bowel cancer,” he said, then added, perhaps to soften the blow before the weekend, “But… um, don’t worry. I’m fairly confident it’s treatable.”