Pathology, Pet Scans, and Planning a Wedding
Sitting here in the spring of 2026, sometimes the early months of Jason’s chemo feel so far away. My mind is so tainted by the hell that was the last months of Jason’s life, that sometimes chemo feels like it was a walk in the park. But it was not. It was the “easiest” part of this journey, because it only got worse from here. But there is nothing easy about chemotherapy. There is nothing easy about a cancer diagnosis in your 30’s. And there sure as hell isn’t anything easy about navigating a life changing diagnosis with your partner 7 months out from your wedding.
The first weeks after Jason’s surgery were full of so many mixed and hard emotions. He was recovering from major surgery and the only thing we could do at this point in time was wait. Wait for him to recover before they would allow him to start chemotherapy. There is something so odd and uncomfortable about waiting when it comes to cancer treatment. The way Jason was rushed into surgery and so much changed in only 48 hours, now to wait for 6 weeks while his body recovered to receive chemo was a very weird headspace. It always felt like letting time pass was letting the cancer have a chance to grow, change, come back. This is how I felt then, and how I felt at many other points along the way of this really bumpy, black iced, pot holed road.
Step 0. Was pathology.
Confirm it is cancer. While I held out a lot of hope in this entire journey that Jason was going to be ok, this was one point in time when I had accepted that it was cancer, far before pathology came back. I was not pretending that the pathology was going to come back and it would be benign. There was just no way. The doctors we had interacted with were not oncologists, but they were all smart enough to have a gut guess at what this was, and not a single one was guessing it wasn’t cancer. Pathology became most important because it told us, and the doctors, mostly the doctors, what Jason’s cancer was made up of. What were the mutations, DNA. What it meant for treatment. It also tested all the lymph nodes that were taken during surgery to determine how many were cancerous. I do recall now that the report stated it was in more lymph nodes than they wanted. At this point in time, Jason’s cancer was determined stage IIIC. I didn’t even know there were substages of cancer, but there are, at least in Colon Cancer. Of course, the further you get away from 1 or A in this case, the worse it is. But again, I didn’t know that at the time. Truth is, I knew very little.
Step 1. Was finding an oncologist.
In hindsight I wish we had “shopped around” or at the very least had a better grasp on what we were really facing when it came to Jason’s cancer. Though, it is so easy to feel that way now, when at the time we didn’t have all the puzzles pieces yet and our worlds had been turned upside down, the only way out seemed like through at this point in time. You don’t know what you don’t know. We went where they told us to. Which was Colorado Cancer Center in Golden. I was already frustrated by this, because there was a Colorado Cancer Center 5 minutes down the road from our house at an associated hospital. But based on where Jason ended up from the surgery, this is where they sent us. There is really no logic in this related to Jasons cancer, just ties of surgeons to clinics. This was just another generic oncologist. Not a specialist. Maybe that would’ve been fine, had Jason had generic cancer, but he didn’t. But at the time he hadn’t yet been tested for Lynch Syndrome. Also no one was talking about his cancer DNA and how and what that really meant for treatment. I wish I had pushed back more on this, even if just to be closer to home for this first round of treatment. Again, you don’t know what you don’t know. Everything felt like a whirlwind, like we just needed to get started, but looking back at it now, that is not the case. I wish we had approached this differently. Maybe if Jason was alive, I wouldn’t feel this way. I think if anything, just remember you are always your best advocate and you do have the freedom to explore options. Trust your gut. Trust your instincts.
Step 2. Get a PET Scan.
I remember the day that the doctor called Jason to let him know his PET scan was clear. It was a Friday afternoon, he was standing in the kitchen and he got the call. I was standing anxiously waiting for him to give me a sign. He smiled and I heard him say that’s good news right, and you could hear the Doctor on the other end, Yes, Jason, that’s very good news. He got off the phone and he said the scan is clear, there is no cancer, we will still do chemo as a preventative approach, but there is no cancer. He teared up. I sobbed. I held him and I just kept saying thank God. Thank God. It hadn’t spread elsewhere, that was my biggest fear.
They got it all in surgery. It is gone. It is all gone. We are going to be ok.
Step 3. Genetic testing.
After Jason’s diagnosis it was critical that he go through genetic testing to determine if his cancer was genetic. It was. Lynch Syndrome. I write more about Lynch syndrome in a previous post. This is very important.
Step 4. Keep planning our wedding.
Jason made it very clear to me that he didn’t want us to stop planning our wedding. That everything would go on as planned. Shortly after Jason’s diagnosis I had my first dress alternation appointment. I had previously brought my dress to her in early January, this was my first real appointment after selecting the seamstress. I remember standing in the room holding back tears. My world had just been flipped upside down. Here I was standing in my wedding dress for what was supposed to be the most beautiful day of my life. Except, everything changed. The moment Jason’s cancer diagnosis came, the stress, details, wedding stuff, became just that, it was stuff. I wasn’t the same girl who stepped into that dress back in August when I bought it. I was different. One single moment and diagnosis had switched everything I knew to be true on its head. I didn’t know what to say, do I mention it, do I not? So I stood there silently as she complimented me and talked to me about mundane wedding planning things. My mind racing about anything but. I didn’t know the saying then, grief and joy can coexist. But that’s what I was experiencing for the first time, standing there. I was clinging to the joy of the most joyous season of my life, colliding with some of the worst news we can get as humans, or so I thought at the time. Except that girl that stood there, she believed they were going to make it. No one was saying otherwise. They were going to get the life they planned, only with a bump in the road. It would make them better, just like Jason said. They’d make it out the other side. So she stood there and tried to soak it all in, but her mind was elsewhere. Only she didn’t know it yet, how cruel this world can really be.
Step 5. Get through Chemo. Kick cancers ass. Get married. Live happily ever after.
Seriously though, that was the mindset. No one was saying anything differently. It feels funny (cruel) to type that out now, because my husband is dead and I feel very far removed from that mindset. But only 2 short years ago, that was the mentality. There was nothing telling us this wouldn’t be true. I remember the first appointment with the oncologist and he said “the goal is to cure you through chemotherapy.” There was no conversation about statistics, no comment of “you have x years left to live.” It was cure, cure, cure. That false hope, sometimes feels like the cruelest part. There was a lot of false hope in this journey. A fucking roller coaster that whipped us around for 18 short months. But in those early days, and for most of chemotherapy. We thought we were going to make it. Chemotherapy became a friend to our wedding planning. We made seating charts, guest lists, talking about wedding stuff all while sitting in the infusion lab for many long days for Jason to receive treatment. Wedding planning became my friend, my distraction, my peace, on the days when Jason was exhausted from chemo and would be sleeping, I would make things and it kept my mind busy. It was our group project with my parents too, everyone was involved and there was something so joyous about it, because everything else at the time was pretty sucky. Because cancer still sucks, even if you think you’re going to survive. The collision of our wedding season and Jason’s cancer really put a lot into perspective. The details brought me peace and joy, where others in the outside world panic over the stupidest things. Yes, they are the stupidest things. I kept focus on the most important piece of it, I was going to marry Jason and he was going to be cancer free.
I hurt deeply for that girl, because life changed so damn quickly, it doesn’t even feel fair, because well, it’s not fucking fair. There are a lot of days still, when I am angry at these two seasons of our life colliding. Not because it’s not fair, though it isn’t, but because I am angry at my self sometimes. I was so hyper focused on the good that was going to come. That should’ve come. Faith that it would all be ok. I often wonder if the wedding wasn’t a thing, meaning if the timing of Jason’s cancer had been different, I do not for a second regret or question marrying my best friend. If we would’ve just rolled Jason into another treatment and things would be different. Would he still be here? These thoughts cross my mind often. The mind plays sick tricks on you like that. It is an unfair thing to do to myself, because the truth is, is immunotherapy was working so well in December of 2024. If it was going to keep working, it would’ve. But that doesn’t mean I am not angry. It also doesn’t mean there are not days when I don’t question everything. Even if it is irrational. It is hard to not do that. But the mind wants to find anyway to make sense of all this, because none of it makes sense, and it never will.
Two years ago Jason’s cancer was presented as a 5 step process, one that you complete and make it through to the other side. The one where we are living on the other side of this, and our biggest inconvenience is his annual screening due to Lynch Syndrome.
That 5 step process turned into a life altering roller coaster ride into hell. I ache deeply for those people, me and Jason, the season of life that we were robbed of, even before cancer took Jason’s life. I am jealous of people who get to live this season of life, and many more, so easily. It pisses me off and it is unfair. I can’t help but laugh, and think what it would’ve been like to be those people. Care free, an easy life, handed happiness the way it feels so many around me are getting.
There is a voice recording on Jason’s phone, we are in the car, we were talking about the wedding. We were not even engaged yet. Jason starts it off by saying “Lauren I do not want this wedding planning to cause you stress”, I laugh and I say it won’t. He asks me to promise. He is making fun of me, in a way. He knows I am organized and detailed oriented. It is cute, and he states I love you very very much and I know I will have to play this a couple times.
I laugh, smile, and equally ache so deeply for those two people on that recording. They had no idea what was coming. The recording was never replayed, I didn’t’t even remember we had it, until a few months ago when I found it on Jason’s phone. But the recording was never played because everything changed the day Jason was diagnosed with cancer. The wedding, the details, the plans, they all became moments of joy rather than frustrating details that the world tells you they should be. Cancer does that to you. Cancer takes everything you know to be hard and makes it look like a walk in the park. It flips everything on its head, it puts everything in life into perspective. From Feb 2, 2024 on, there was very little about wedding planning that caused me stress. Just like the girl in that recording promised. Only, she had no fucking clue how cruel the other side of life could be.
