How rectal cancer brought this couple closer

When Megan Scott was a college student working at a grocery store bakery, she was relaxing at a nearby coffee shop where she met John Baker, a barista. They chatted occasionally until one day, John commented on the book she was reading – cleverly enough to catch her attention.

Megan later learns that she was created by John’s family The joy of cooking-The first cookbook I ever owned. After hooking up with this coincidence, she asked him out. Their first date was trivia, and the rest is history. They married in 2012.

“It was glorious. Those were solid days for sure,” John said, recalling all the time they spent camping, hiking and even picking mushrooms in their first few years together.

But in 2020, John was diagnosed with rectal cancer.

John and Megan sat together health To explain what that time in their lives was like and how diagnosis and treatment affected their relationship.

You will be diagnosed with cancer in 2020. What prompted you to go to the doctor and find out what was wrong?

John: We had to hand in the manuscript [Joy of Cooking] At the beginning of 2019, and so on [the time leading up to that] It was just incredibly stressful. I was working full time on the book. I was holding myself to really high standards, agonizing over things I probably didn’t need or spending a lot of time on things I probably wasn’t supposed to have. I started experiencing symptoms similar to those that occur with hemorrhoids, and I thought they were stress-related.

I ended up going to my primary care doctor, but it took a while to do so. The doctor said: I agree with you [that it’s probably hemorrhoids]Therefore, he did not request a colonoscopy.

A few months later, John’s mother was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer with metastases (cancer cells that have spread from the site of the initial tumor) to the liver.

John: Suddenly, my symptoms became more interesting. My mother used to promise me that I would have a colonoscopy as soon as possible.

Megan: Well, you had a date set, but then coronavirus happened. Everything was closed, and the appointment was canceled because they were canceling anything considered optional. But I remember kind of forcing the issue on you, like, “I think we should really prove that you need to do this.” “We cannot keep waiting and waiting and waiting.” So they finally rescheduled their appointment.

I went into the appointment thinking: “It can’t be cancer.” His mother has just been diagnosed, so what are the odds?

Megan: I was not allowed into the office [due to COVID practices]So I was waiting for him in the car for his colonoscopy. And they called me and said, ‘We found cancer.’ They knew by looking at it that it was cancer, but said they needed to do more tests to be sure. I don’t have many memories of that time because I was so traumatized. I think we were kind of in shock.

He got out to the car, and we drove home in silence. I had to take us home because I was the driver; I couldn’t cry in the car. But as soon as we walked in the door, I cried. I called my mom, then a few friends. I just wanted to talk, to tell people what happened.

In the following days, John also underwent a computed tomography (CT) scan. A few days later, while the couple was walking in their neighborhood, they received a call from the doctor. The test confirmed that he had stage 4 rectal cancer that had spread to the liver.

Megan, after John’s diagnosis, what role did you feel you had to play? How did you support him through chemotherapy, radiation and surgery?

Megan: I don’t know how others deal with this type of diagnosis. I was really upset, and cried a lot. And then I think at some point, I said, “Okay, we need to close this down and get him the care he needs, do the treatment, and not think about the worst-case scenarios or catastrophic things.” I have to be a steady and strong person and help him get through this.

Megan: I’ll take time off work, and I’ll go. I will take him to his treatment. I wasn’t allowed to go with him to the chemotherapy room, but I would go to his appointments with his oncologist beforehand. Then I would leave, go to work, come back when he finished chemo a few hours later, and pick him up. So I was there for all his appointments, but I wasn’t able to be in some places I really wanted to be, like the chemotherapy room.

And then when he had his first surgery, I literally had to drive him to the hospital and couldn’t get inside. This felt crazy. I couldn’t be there in a lot of the situations he was in, and that made it very scary because I had no vision of what was happening.

John: You show up. She wasn’t complaining. You have been very supportive.

Both Megan and John had therapists they could talk to. John first started seeing a therapist before his diagnosis, when he was having difficulty dealing with his mother’s cancer diagnosis. At the time, John was relying on Meghan for a lot of emotional support. This sparked an important conversation between the couple, where Meghan had to be honest and say: “I think you need more help than I can give.”

Megan, how did you deal with John’s mood swings after surgery?

Megan: I guess I’ve been listening too much and letting you talk. And when you had your galactic brain moments, you were just listening to that. Then I try to reassure you when down times come: “You won’t feel this forever, it will pass.” Just trying to be consistent and even. Even if I don’t feel that way inside.

John: It was very helpful for me to have someone to talk to besides Megan. It actually ended up making things a little easier on us [when I was diagnosed with cancer].

Looking back at yourselves as a couple before your diagnosis, what has been the biggest change in your relationship from then until now?

John: This may be obvious, but I feel like it has brought us closer.

Megan: Obviously our relationship is involved in this, but personally, the biggest evolution I’ve ever needed to go through is when your partner is diagnosed with something like this, where you kind of have to go through this process of mourning the life or the future that you thought you were going to have.

John, I’ve been in remission for a few years. What was life like after cancer?

John: It gets better the farther you go.

Meg: I feel like we have more trust in our relationship because if we could get past that, everything else would seem really insignificant and small.