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?

I’ve smoked since I was about, oh I dunno.. 17 or so. At my most frequent, I was smoking a pack and a half of Marlboro reds a day. That was when I was at university, which was (holy crap) 10 years ago.

Anyway, a few years ago, I quit. I managed to stay off for about 2 years. In the last year though, I’ve lapsed. I’d have one or two a week, then one a day.. Most recently I reached the point where I was smoking 3 or 4 a day although that was only for about a week. By smoker standards, it’s not much.. but for someone who has had 3 pulmonary embolisms, and has permanent damage to one of their lungs which will never heal, it’s pretty stupid.

So that’s it – I’m done. No more. Yeah I’ve said it before, but this time I’m hoping I can make it. One of the tools I used before when I quit was a list of benefits based on time since quitting. This one, in fact. I also have a handy script which shows (to the second) how long it’s been, lest I forget the date. As of right now it stands at 1 Week, 0 Days, 17 Hours, 23 Minutes and 7 Seconds. I hope to have to modify the script to handle counting of years at some point.