I’m a new member of the worst club …

Man, cuzzins, I have had quite the colonial medicine month.

Oh %$#@&, before I continue, ya best put the kids to sleep first or put a big screen in front of their beautiful little faces, ‘cause O’mahk’siik’iimi is ‘bout to elaborate like he’s never elaborated before. You’ve been warned.

Yeah, yeah, I know … I just referred to myself in the third person, but calm down young grasshopper … I literally stepped outside myself these past few weeks, and it was rarely by choice.

March 11th, 1pm ADT:

I go for a routine Ureteroscopy - it’s one way they destroy kidney stones (my two kidney stone bros are one centimeter apiece, much too big to pass!). First, they knock you unconscious (thank %$#@&). Then they put a tube (with a tiny camera and other tools) in your urethra - yep thru your weewee - allllll the way to your kidney. Then they put in a stent (another tube), then they destroy the kidney stone bros, then they leave in the stent for a week.

March 11th, 3pm ADT:

In a stupor, I awaken from zero dreams, having just time travelled 2 hours. As I slowly regain consciousness, I realize I am mumble ranting to the nurse about Oreo Double Stuffed Cookies and how they’re my colonization guilty pleasure. “Yeah, white man took our land, but … damn these Oreos!”

March 11th, 4pm ADT:

Dr Duplisea - the second white man to have ever been inside me - arrives (the first was a cavity search at the USA border, a story for another time, lol). I am 69% back to full consciousness, so his post-op jargon befuddles me, but I do remember him saying this (or maybe I was still high, idk):

“Jason (my colonial name), when I went in to destroy those kidney stones I found a cancerous tumor in your bladder. I lasered it out and sent it for testing.”

He went on and on, but I don’t remember anything else.

Wait what? Cancer? CANCER? cancer? caNCer? CAncER? cAnCeR????

I immediately thought of my two young boys, they’re still kids, I moved across KKKanada for them, they need me in their daily lives. At the same time, the other half of my brain thought of my adult daughter, and how I haven’t really been there for her since she was 12. She grew up to be a powerful woman, without me, her dad, and I will always be a coward for that.

Next I thought of those I have wronged … I am the last ndn to blame anything on my intergenerational trauma, heck I have healed AND learned how to harness my intergenerational trauma AND make it my career. When shared, that toxicity becomes medicine for others, your struggle becomes a guidebook for others, blah blah blah … but man oh man, cuzzins, I have also learned that, in innumerable unfathomable ways, that %$#@& intergenerational trauma is an inescapable monster, too. It rears its monstrous head and manifests itself in ways you don’t even think about until long after the fact. Trust me, your Blackfoot bro is no different.

March 11th, 4:05pm ADT:

A nurse is taking my blood sample in a final waiting room. She tells me about my post-op care, and answers questions while I wait for my ride home. It was at that moment I first notice an unfamiliar itch in my no-no square (lol). I remove the blanket covering my lower half and notice a giant catheter tube connected to me (thru me? in me?) - yes the urethra, yes the weewee hole. Up until that fateful moment I was but a weewee innocent catheter virgin, unaware of existence outside my virginal innocence.

My catheter cherry now forever broken, I am freaking the %$#@& out, yo! Luckily I am still kinda trippin’ that light fantastic, the deepest darkest recesses of my brain cling desperately to the meager remnants of my general anesthesia buzz. I am with it enough to realize that my nurse has just told another of my cancer diagnosis. WTF? Isn’t that my choice to tell others? Anyways, %$#@& it, I woulda dealt with it, but I was high.

March 11th, 9:30pm ADT:

That first night, it dawns on me, the gravity of my situation. A giant tube coming out of your orifice is not nearly as fun it sounds (ya weirdo). I go into full on panic mode, but it’s like a stuck panic, cause I can’t move properly anymore. It’s that stuck panic that gets me the most, cuzzin.

Years back, in my spelunking days, I got stuck deep in a cave at Ing’s Mine (near Bragg Creek, Alberta). I was stuck at a downward 3/4 angle for a good three hours while a buddy went for help. With some strategic pulls, I was freed. For years I was stricken with feeling trapped when I couldn’t leave a situation. Took me a long time to mostly get over it, and here I was, feeling that exact same trapped feeling again.

That first week, things got so bad, I called my ancestors collect. At first, my fiesty late uncle Marlin, refused to accept the charges (lol). Luckily, late grandma Leona pushed him away from the Creator’s rotary phone and listened closely to my pleas of pain.

She told me, in Blackfoot: “Boy, Blackfoot do not avoid suffering, we embrace it. Struggle teaches us what comfort cannot.”

“Geez, Grandma why you always gotta have amazing undeniable wisdom???”

No response.

I embrace the suffering and spend the rest of the day chatting with various ancestors, they know I am immobile so of course they’re all lined up to give me a long overdue earful.

Later that eve, before I slip into my completely legal Ativan haze, I call my parents in Minneapolis. Mama empowers me like the gentle warrior she is, and raised me to be. My stepdad reiterates what others have said, but for some reason, it resonates coming from him.

He says “thank goodness you had kidney stones, or your cancer would have gone undetected.”

That week has now grown into just over a month. The suffering is still there, and the terror still shows up once in a while, but its more emasculating than anything now, very minor.

As I continue in my cancer journey, I have learned many things:

• Do not fear getting tested, make it a priority TODAY. Your loved ones need you.
• Pay attention to your body and its symptoms.
• Be persistent with your doctor. I had been peeing blood for almost 18 months, at first they said it was kidney stones and I had to insist on a Urologist and testing.
• Your ancestors are listening, call to them when you are weakest. They will come to you.
• Try to make things right with those you have wronged. Remind those you care about that you care about them.

Next in my journey is my original surgery, my Ureteroscopy, I still have the kidney stones. Then its 5 years of monitoring my bladder, no chemotherapy … yet.

I reveal my struggles to you, because I always have. Vulnerability is my superpower. My pain is your medicine. My suffering is your healing. My story is your survival guide.

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