Reflections on Tony Snow

On Saturday, when I heard about Tony Snow’s death from colon cancer, I was truly shaken. I wasn’t a big fan of Tony’s and, quite frankly, I didn’t even remember until Saturday that he had colon cancer. But, when I learned of his death, I felt a strange and very sad kinship with him as a fellow “young” person with colon cancer. His death has rocked me to my core.

Tony died from a relapse of colon cancer. He had already completed a six-month round of chemo and been given the "all clear." That’s where I hope to be in the next two weeks. But the next part of the story is something that I will always fear—after many months of health, a relapse of colon cancer was detected in his liver and his fight to stay alive started all over again.

Tony Snow’s story has given me renewed vigor to beat colon cancer—once and for all.

I’ve decided that over these next several months, I need to truly focus my time and energy on becoming healthy again. Because I’ve done so well throughout my chemo treatments compared to many others, I had forgotten that I am facing a formidable adversary – one who can easily take my life.

Many of you know that I have faced cancer with everything available to me. Not just chemotherapy, but acupuncture, natural medicine and mental healing. While books on healing have stacked up on my bookshelf, I have not devoted very much time to them. More often than not I’ve tried to keep myself busy to avoid thinking about it, rather than deal with it head on.

Looking at my children this past weekend – who turned 5 on July 8th – I realized that they deserve to have a mother. It is my absolute responsibility to do everything in my power to maximize the likelihood that I will be around to help them grow into strong, vibrant women. I want to be there; not just to see them start kindergarten, but for their high school and college graduations, their weddings and to help them raise their own children.

On Sunday night I began my final round of chemotherapy. The neuropathy in my fingers is quite bothersome and the skin on my feet is now blistering and peeling due to the cumulative impacts of chemo. While I cannot wait for this journey to end, I now know that it will never truly be over. I will always be looking over my shoulder hoping that cancer is not creeping back into my life.

This is the life of the cancer survivor.

I hear from many survivors that eventually this all consuming worry lessens and isn’t a part of your daily existence. Some people have told me that they now go weeks— or even months—without thinking about cancer.

That’s hard to imagine now, but I look forward to that day.