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.

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 :)

I’m still cancer free! Woohoo! 3 months down the road and things are looking great. Blood test results are all normal. The CT scan revealed that my lymph nodes are all looking normal, apart from some in my neck which are a little big, but they’re smaller than they were before which indicates that they’re still shrinking, which is great.

So, going forward, we have to wait another 3 months, do more blood work, and if things look good again then, wait another 3 months, do a CT, etc. etc.. After that, they start doing the tests less frequently – maybe every 6 months, and so on, until after 5 years of no relapse, they declare me ‘cured’. So, only 4 years and 9 months to go :)

It’ll be a different type of chemo this time. Instead of 1 day, I’ll go in every day for 3 days. About 4 hours on the first day, on the second day they fit me with a portable pump which I’ll carry around with me for 24 hours while it pumps some more drugs into me, then on the third day they take it out, and do another dose of another drug. The idea with doing a different type of chemo is a safeguard in case the cancer is becoming resistant to the previous drugs.

So, yeah, starting on the 11th, I’m back into it, then a 3 week gap, then another treatment, and maybe then we’ll be done.

So then I went to have the actual scan. This involved lying on a bed which then moved into the scanner. Again, I had to remain as unmoving as possible, for another 35 minutes. This was even more unpleasant because the machine was quite narrow, and with my arms by my side, they were pressed against quite hard. The scanner would move a couple of inches, scan for 5 minutes, rinse, repeat.

Anyway, at the end I asked if I’d moved too much, and she said I’d done fine, so hopefully the results will be good enough for them to determine for certain whether or not the remaining lymph node is still cancerous or just still shrinking. I have an appointment with Dr. Kovach next week to find out what the results are. Assuming it’s still cancerous, then I’ll probably be in for some radiation therapy, but if not, then that’s all clear, and the next step is to just keep an eye on everything. Presumably, that would mean another CT in 6 months or so.

So, basically this is really good news. No more chemo, they’re pretty sure I’m in total remission, they’re just being extra careful to check it before saying that for certain. If it turns out that this one lymph node needs further treatment, I’ll be going in for radiation rather than more chemo (Yay again, chemo sucks).

More news as and when I hear it. Oh, and if anyone in the UK is reading this, I’ve been trying to call, but the international phone lines seem to be messed up and I can’t get through.. I’ll keep trying though.