processing

Best case scenario, I still had fucking cancer. There's a chance I still do, but that aside, why the hell am I getting cancer at all. This is so fucked up. I'm only 46. I don't smoke, or drink, eat meat or processed foods. I don't even eat sugar. I exercise every day. I have no family history of this. I've been intermittent fasting every day for years, which is supposed to help prevent cancer.

The one risk category I'm in is that I'm miserable and lonely, and I've been living this way for a long time. Weathering all this, alone in my dismal apartment all day every day, year after year. Now I've got to fend off cancer alone like this? That'll be a straight up death sentence.

Even if I get through this, and if I caught it early enough, it's now something I'll have to worry about for the rest of my life. Once your body grows a cancer, you can't really trust it ever again. Some might think of it as entirely medical, something that inexplicably happens to us. That we're helpless to prevent it, aside from treatment; don't think about it, just deal with it.

Others churn endlessly, trying to figure out why cancer happens. We know that all sorts of lifestyle and environmental factors contribute. Being a GI cancer, diet is especially likely to matter. Despite all the things I don't eat, I still manage to eat almost no fresh fruits or vegetables. I buy them occasionally, but not regularly. I don't shop often enough to keep a regular stock of fresh produce. I eat lots of legumes; beans, chickpeas, lentils, and rice every day. Lots of nuts, seeds, and oats. Actual vegetables though, uncooked? Almost never.

I think it's probably better to think there's something I can do to improve my chances going forward, than to think this is just how random cancer is. Even if I'm wrong, it's beneficial to think I'm maybe doing something to help myself, instead of feeling helpless. Now that I'm saying it out loud, I'm realizing that not eating vegetables is actually quite glaring. They rot so fast, and shopping without a vehicle is such a hassle, but that can't be good for me.

As long as this doesn't stop me from doing BJJ, I'll be ok.