back to the black box

six months in the making, today was as spectacular a spring day as i ever could have imagined. it started out with dark cloud looming around. i wasn't too upset by them. i like a nice, menacing-looking sky. i am always struck by how dramatically the rest of nature plays out against such a strong backdrop. as the sun began filtering through i had already shrugged off yet another morning reboot session and was feeling ready to face the hospital, along with the familiar smells, sounds, people and routines. i switched things up, heading to radiation first to cross it off the day's list and also to be sure i got in while the doctors are around... i don't know whether they are always there, but i know they are at 9am or so. we talked to a family i had met last week; it turns out they live just down the road from me and jim and i went to high school with their children, two of whom are also penn staters. it is an amazingly small world and that little tidbit put me in an even better mood. i like small-world connections like that. anyway; i waited my turn, got zapped, and as melodramatically as it all began six or so weeks ago, i was finished. hugs all around for my technicians, and it was time to be signed off by the boss. typical, my heart was not behaving and i ran through the gamut of how i've been feeling. i bragged about my three-pound weight loss over the weekend (the boss had wanted me to weigh the same today as the day i began treatment; he lightheartedly joked that i HAD started looking a little thick through the middle. i promised to gain it back ASAP. oh, i love food.) and with that, and an explanation of what's next, i received my marching orders.

go back to living life to the fullest. take time to heal, but make sure you are moving and doing and being, as before this all began. for now, as of today, there isn't cancer. come see us in a month and even then, we won't scan you quite yet and you still won't have cancer. we are your caretakers for life. unless we move. (at which point i suggested moving somewhere nice, with mountains)

so there you and i have it. no cancer. no real proof, but i am going on faith. for two months (i will have a scan in mid-late june) i do not have cancer. longer, hopefully. i think there is a lot to be said for believing it with my entire soul. it is already a challenge and it is a strange feeling - what do you mean, no cancer? it so snuck up on me. this is nuts. but it is. and so, i say, it is gone. no. cancer. believe it with me, please. believe it right out of me for sure.

and then, i enjoyed the chemo floor for a last go-round with my loverboy cisplatin. the cookies mom bought were a hit and everyone enjoyed the surprise of beautiful flowers i bought. i needed to do something that would make them feel even one ounce as fantastic as they make me feel each time i am there. i head back in a week for a checkup of my blood counts. other than that, i will be scanned in june and we shall see. on a cancer-free note, i do have to see a cardiologist tomorrow, interesting, today i had to give my medical history to the cardiologist's nurse. "do you have any past medical history we should know about?" "welllllll, uh, do you know about my cancer?!"

the entire famdamily was there for me today and we actually had a lot of fun. as zayne can attest, they are, and by they i mean we because how can i count myself out, a wildly unrefined and funny bunch who loves to laugh. we had fun everytime we had to be there, actually. i am so lucky to have mom, dad and jim to get me through this. we all need a big fat vacation. toes in the lake and croquet and even a grilled bratwurst and - maybe - a beer for me. man, we need a break. we were all very happy when it was over, when the iv beeped its last beep and it was time to go. strangely bittersweet, but dad even managed to smile bigger than i've seen him smile in a long time. it has been a long unexpected road and we all did it together through a lot of bad but overwhelming good.

more than anything this evening i am feeling struck by the immensity of it all. of all that is beautiful in life. of how apple trees today smell just like the apple trees in chan twenty years ago. that when i close my eyes i can be so many places no one else can even imagine. that the poisons left inside me are killing the last bits of the most significant life changing substance of my life. that the sun is just shining like crazy out there making everything look so fresh and new and incredible. i'm overwhelmed. it is good.


a few of the chemo nurse-angels and i, following treatment


jimnerd and i hamming it up.


jim wanted some chemo, too. they wouldn't give him any. too bad he couldn't stockpile a little extra for me.


home in the backyard, breathing deep of the apple blossoms and sweet spring air.


blood test arm (white count all the way up to 5 today! woohoo!)


chemo arm.


minnesota blue sky... i wish i was at the cabin on a day like today!