GlobalMegaBlog

So, 5 years ago, give or take, I wrote this entry, detailing my next 2 sessions of chemo. I didn’t document the exact dates, and I don’t recall off the top of my head what they were, but based on what’s in that post, I think my last chemo session would have been July 11th, 2003.

This means that I’ve reached the mythical ‘5 years’ of remission. Which is the point where relapse hits a fraction of a percent. I don’t suppose I’ll ever consider it truly gone, but this is about as a good a milestone as one can hope for.

Thanks to everyone who posted their support during that time. Your feedback meant a lot to me, even if my natural English stoicism didn’t show it.

I suppose it’s about time for a new user icon eh?

Edit: Yes, it is. I’ve retired the old no hair chemo shot in favour of this one of our boys, who proved the doctors who said we’d never be able to have kids after chemo completely wrong.

It’s become such a recurring non-event that it didn’t really occur to me to post here about it until now. Yesterday, I visited my oncologist for my regular 6 month check-up. As I’d expected, everything was normal, which puts me at 3 years, 3 months in remission. He said that my cancer was very aggressive, and that if I was going to experience a relapse, it would probably have happened by now. ie, he thinks I’m cured. Obviously, we’ll still keep a close eye on it, and I’m always watching for symptoms, but they’ve scheduled my next check-up for a year instead of 6 months.. so, uh, yeah. Wahoo, eh?

Had a CT on Tuesday, went in for the results today. I’m happy to report that, not only is the central retropertioneal adenopathy slightly diminished, but also no significant mesenteric adenopathy is identified.

Really, you can’t make this stuff up. It’s all greek to me. Anyway, bottom line is, everything looks great, my odds of relapse are now down to about 10%, which is still higher than I’d like, but much better than the 50% of a year ago. We’re now going to switch from doing a check up every 3 months to every 6 months. Next time will be just blood work, and then a year from now, another CT (yay, a whole year without having to drink that damn contrast fluid).

So, yeah, party :)