Twelve Balls
December 30, 2025.
I am told that I have cancer.
At first, no one knows whether it is Stage II, Stage III or Stage IV.
I hope for the best.
My surgeon performs a colectomy and removes more than a foot of my large colon. Somehow, I feel better after surgery than I did before it.
During the surgery, he is also able to locate the suspicious lesion on my liver.
Soon after, the diagnosis becomes clear.
Stage IV colon cancer.
The next morning I meet with my oncologist, Dr. Chen.
She explains the disease, how it has presented, the chemotherapy I will need, and most importantly, that they are treating me with curative intent.
She prescribes twelve rounds of FOLFOX.
Twelve.
She expects that I will tolerate it reasonably well.
She also tells me that I probably won’t lose my hair.
That feels like a major positive.
My first infusion is scheduled for February 5.
Twelve rounds sounds almost impossible.
Between the colectomy and the beginning of chemotherapy, Sophie is helping me prepare breakfast in the kitchen.
She looks at me with a seriousness that stops me.
“You have to promise me that you are going to do everything you can to heal from this.”
I look directly into her eyes.
“Sophie, I promise. I want to live. I want to see your kids. I want to see grandkids. I have a lot of living left. I will do everything I can to get through this. I promise.”
At the time, I could feel the fear.
Fear that both of us had.
It was alive there in the kitchen with us.
She had brought me to the emergency room the night we first learned that cancer was likely. She had been there when Dr. Bastidas first met with us. She learned that I was Stage IV before I had even awakened from surgery.
She had already carried more of this than I understood at the time.
My daughter was there for me.
I understand that twelve cycles without interruption means roughly six months.
I have seen other people go through chemotherapy.
I have seen how difficult it can be.
As an athlete, I understand the value of a team.
There are very few things I have ever done completely alone.
At work, I rely on David as a coach. In life, Renee gives me perspective when I need it most.
I already understand the power of support.
CrossFit reinforces it.
Training alone is okay.
Training with a partner is better.
Competing requires a team.
Someone is there telling me to drink.
Eat.
Rest.
Keep going.
Cancer is going to require a bigger team.
Even while I am in the hospital, I begin thinking about who I need around me.
Natalie, a nutritionist with decades of experience helping oncology patients through treatment.
Dr. Ho, my PT and chiropractor, someone I have known for twenty years and trust to pay close attention to what my body is telling him.
Melanie, an acupuncturist. Dr. Chen has told me that acupuncture may help with some of the side effects of chemotherapy.
Jane, a Reiki Master, someone I have visited a handful of times over the years.
And then the people who simply show up.
Sophie.
In those early days, she cooks, cleans, helps me tie my shoes.
Diem.
Always beside me, using her intellect, her calm, and her professional experience to help me understand what the doctors are saying and to remind me that my prognosis is not hopeless.
Henny.
Steve.
Bruce.
Close friends who do not shy away from my sick.
They move closer.
I know I need them.
Somewhere during those weeks, I set a glass bowl on the kitchen counter.
I fill it with twelve small balls.
They are different colors, each with an encouraging saying printed on it.
My favorite: “Keep moving forward.”
Twelve balls fill the bowl more than I want them to.
But twelve is what I have to do.
The idea comes from CrossFit.
During a particularly difficult workout, I sometimes calculate where I am.
Ten percent done.
Halfway.
Seventy-five percent.
Almost there.
I need something like that for chemotherapy.
A visual reminder that I am making progress.
On the morning of my first infusion, I sit on the edge of my bed and cry for twenty minutes.
I cannot believe I am actually going to chemotherapy.
I cannot believe I am going to walk into an infusion center twelve times as part of trying to heal from this disease.
I am terrified.
What will it feel like?
Will I be nauseated?
Will I be able to work?
Will I be able to do normal things?
Will I recognize myself afterward?
I have no idea.
Then I meet Ben.
Ben is the RN who handles my first infusion.
He smiles.
He explains what is going to happen.
He tells me what to expect.
He takes time.
Then he gives me an absolutely terrifying cleanup kit to use in the event that my 5-FU line is punctured or leaks.
Nothing says, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” quite like being handed a hazardous-drug cleanup kit.
But Ben is extraordinary.
He is kind.
He is calm.
He makes something frightening somehow feel manageable.
He makes the infusion almost nice.
Or at least as nice as chemotherapy can possibly be.
After that first disconnect, I look at the bowl.
My original plan had simply been to take one ball out after every cycle.
Eleven left.
Then ten.
Then nine.
But suddenly that doesn’t feel right.
I don’t want to just remove them.
I want to give them away.
The first one goes to Ben.
I give him the ball along with a handwritten card.
I tell him how much his kindness mattered to me.
How much it mattered that the person who introduced me to chemotherapy treated me with care and compassion rather than as another patient sitting in another chair.
Later, Ben tells me something I never expect to hear.
There have been times when he has considered leaving oncology.
On some of those days, he has reread my card.
And decided to stay.
That stays with me.
I thought I was thanking someone who had helped me.
I had no idea that my gratitude might help him too.
From then on, the balls become something different.
I give them to the people who are carrying parts of this with me.
Get Andy S.’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Each time I give one away, I explain that the ball probably means more to me than it ever could to them.
It is a symbol.
A thank-you.
A recognition that I did not get through that particular stretch by myself.
One by one, the bowl empties.
Dr. Chen.
Dr. Ho.
Jane.
Melanie.
Steve, who practices the Fasting Mimicking Diet alongside me simply so I don’t have to do it alone.
Sophie.
Maybel.
Henny, who checks on me constantly and somehow looks at me as a father figure even while she is helping take care of me.
Bruce, a dear friend who has already walked through colon cancer.
Ben.
By cycle ten, I am tired.
Really tired.
There are only six weeks left, and for the first time I begin allowing myself to say out loud that I don’t feel good.
Chemo has a cumulative effect. Nine rounds have already put a lot of medicine into my body. By the middle of number ten, I feel it.
I am more tired.
More sick.
More beaten up than I have been before.
I am standing in my kitchen one day with Jacob.
He looks at me.
“You doing okay?”
It isn’t perfunctory.
He is asking because I don’t look good.
“I feel like shit,” I say. “I’m tired. Chemo is hard.”
I hear myself say it.
I stand there for a moment.
“Jacob, I can’t keep saying that out loud.”
Not because it isn’t true.
It is true.
I am tired.
I don’t feel good.
Chemo is hard.
But I also know why I am doing it.
“This medicine has a purpose. I can do this. I will do this. It’s okay if I’m tired. It’s okay if I don’t feel great. I can do this.”
Something shifts for me in that kitchen.
By the third day of that infusion, somehow I feel a little better than I did on the second.
I have more energy.
I take the dogs for a walk.
More importantly, I believe I am going to make it through all twelve cycles.
I believe I am going to live to be an old man.
From that day forward, I keep moving.
I know I am close to the end of the prescribed treatment.
Six weeks.
I can do six weeks.
That day in the kitchen, I stop leaning into how sick I feel and begin leaning into something else.
I lean into living.
At the beginning, the balls represented how much treatment I had left.
Somewhere along the way, they came to represent how many people were helping me carry it.
By the time I approach infusion number twelve, there is one ball left in the bowl.
I have known for a long time who it belongs to.
Diem.
Her love.
Her encouragement.
Her constant presence.
She has been beside me through nearly every part of this journey.
I am ready.
I am looking forward to the infusion.
I am looking forward to the disconnect.
I am looking forward to living.
I am grateful that I have not shied away from life during this year.
I have not hidden.
I have grown.
I have become more present.
I have allowed myself to be frightened, loved, helped, exhausted, hopeful and grateful.
Maybe that is what I mean when I say that I feel more human than I have for much of my life.
The morning of my final disconnect, Diem and I are alone.
I bring her the last ball.
It is green.
Printed on it are the words:
“Keep moving forward.”
I start to cry.
Not a few tears.
I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I have gone through.
What we have gone through.
Blood tests.
MRIs.
CT scans.
PET scans.
Surgeries.
Chemotherapy every other week for twelve rounds.
Neuropathy.
Exhaustion.
Trying to keep weight on.
Fear.
Waiting.
All of it.
Diem holds me.
She is crying too.
For a while, we are both just sobbing.
There isn’t anything to explain.
We both understand what this moment is.
There were so many times during this year when I needed someone beside me.
Sophie and Diem carried more of this with me than I think either of them ever expected to carry.
Diem looks directly into my eyes.
“We are growing old together.”
I cry harder.
“We have been through this,” she says. “We are continuing on.”
Later, Sophie takes me to the infusion center for my final disconnect.
She has come with me for ten of the twelve.
She stays with me.
And she lets me cry.
Months earlier, standing together in my kitchen, Sophie had asked me to make her a promise.
Do everything you can to heal.
I promised her I would.
Today she is beside me when the pump comes off for what I hope is the last time.
I don’t know exactly what comes next.
There will be more blood tests.
More scans.
More appointments.
More waiting.
But this part is finished.
Twelve rounds.
The bowl is empty.
I am still here.
I think about the words on that final green ball.
Keep moving forward.
That is exactly what I intend to do.
