Here are six words that every cancer patient wants to see: "no evidence of local tumor recurrence." That's what the report I received today says, so it appears that the treatment worked and I am cancer-free. I have to admit that it feels pretty good to write that.
Great medicine + power of prayer + positive attitude + support of family and friends + luck of the Irish = success.
MANY THANKS AGAIN for all of the prayers and support. The doctors all agree that people do better with a strong support system, and I feel extremely lucky to have had so many people looking out for me. And here is where I publicly declare, in front of the entire world wide web, that I have the most amazing wife on the planet.
I'm really a bit overwhelmed. Even when you maintain a positive attitude and a sense of humor, the anxiety is down there, lurking. I first discovered the lump in my neck in January, so you can imagine the level of relief involved today.
I will go back for a scan in a month, and there is still a very small lump in my neck that they want to watch closely. So I'm not getting cocky, and frankly won't be for about five years. As you cancer gurus out there know, the chance of recurrence drops off sharply as each year goes by, and after about five years, the doctors start to really relax.
I'll leave you with some humor from today's report. They did a partial head, neck, and chest scan on Monday, so they scanned part of my lower brain. They didn't find anything, but you gotta love the way they wrote it up:
"Visualization of the inferior brain is unremarkable."
Ouch! ;>
