April 26, 2013

It's been a long, tough ride of course. You ride around connected to things, tubing, backpacks - needles rest in your chest connected to a catheter that leads directly into your heart to pump poisons into your body in order to remove disease. You go through it because you dream of better days. You go through it because you remember how good life was, is, and can possibly be in the future. You go through it because you really have no other choice. You dream of the day you hear your doctor utter the word "remission".

Today is that day. MRI this morning revealed that the previously worrisome spot on the PET scan last Thursday is still to be monitored but not showing up as a tumor. In essence, radiographically, I am a tumorless human being. Sure, the one near my tailbone will never physically go away, but hopefully it will remain, like the others, completely inactive and dead. In other words, hopefully I'll stay in remission. This is the first of many more steps to go, but sure does it feel like a big one.

I'll continue to receive the maintenance chemotherapy in order to increase the likelihood of the disease not coming back. My hair will grow back, and I'll get some of my life back together, God willing. Things will start to unwind and we'll all just remember this as a dark, dark year. Can't say it hasn't been some experience, regardless of the outcome, though. Certainly a life changing experience - hope I am able to live with this new outlook for many more years.

Later everyone.