Life’s pretty good, and why wouldn’t it be? I’m a Pirate, after all…

Crew,

As we pull back into home port I’d like to thank all of you for sharing this voyage with me. 6 months is a long time for our lives to be disrupted, though now at the tail end it seems like it went by quickly. 6 months ago I was introduced to a new normal, one where every day I would think of Cancer, where all the concerns I thought were important just weeks before suddenly paled in comparison to the new reality. Through 6 cycles of chemotherapy we’ve had great days of fair winds and some other days where you all helped me bail water just to keep things afloat. For 3 weeks now since the end of my 6th cycle I’ve been waiting to see what the course ahead would look like.

On Tuesday I sat down with my oncologist, Dr. Norris, and went over the results from the PET scan I had last week. The scan showed no sign of Cancer in my femur or anywhere else in my body. He considers me in full remission and says there is very little chance of the Cancer coming back.

Being the thorough types we are, Crystal and I pushed for greater detail, what does “remission” and “very little chance” mean exactly? He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and explained further (He was obviously expecting a more joyful reaction, not the stone faced suspicion he was getting). Well it means that there was metabolic activity in my femur, but this is to be expected since my bone needs to heal from the intrusion of the Lymphoma. The healing process takes time and will show activity in the same way Cancer showed activity. It is hard to tell at this point whether every single Cancer cell was killed. After 6 cycles it is very unlikely any survived, but impossible to know. The healing process is also very hard to predict because there are so few cases of this type of cancer in someone my age. The only test now is time, and since this is such an aggressive cancer it won’t take long. I will be geographically restricted and do PET scans every 3 months for the next year. If any cells survived, they will show themselves in that time. If after a year I am still clean, we will do more scans every 6 months for another year just to be sure. If after 2 years I am still cancer free, then we will know no cells survived and can call it a full cure.

This is the best news we can get at this point.

We continued to pelt him with questions…

Does this mean I can get my port removed? (yes)
How strict exactly is this “geographical restriction”? (err… negotiable?)
How compromised is my femur structurally? (not sure exactly, need to talk to a bone doc)
If it does come back what happens then? (We have options, but they get more toxic and damaging, let’s cross that road if it comes)
Does all this mean I can’t dive or jump soon? (…please stop asking that)

We ran out of questions and left, feeling less satisfied than we had hoped we would. Yes we got the best answer possible at this time, but the uniqueness of the case and the nature of Cancer itself means that “cure” is not a word that comes quickly or without an asterisk.

Honestly we were (and are) a bit shell shocked. Being heightened for so long makes it hard to accept the good news and feel better about it. But as we went home and clinked our glasses to celebrate we began to accept that this really is the end of a chapter. 6 months ago we struggled to wrap our heads around the fact that I really did have cancer and that all the things that you read about and think happens to other people is really going to happen to us. Now we must struggle to accept that it is very likely over. That the infusion center visits are done, that my hair is growing back, that long term plans that just seemed like a bad idea can now be made.

On Wednesday I went in for surgery to have my port removed. I had gone ahead and scheduled the removal surgery directly with the Interventional Radiology department a month ago. Oncology wasn’t too happy about that but if I had waited until the green light from them I would have that damn thing in my chest for another month for no good reason. Lesson 1 of healthcare systems: No-one cares about your situation like you do, kick in doors until you get what you want.

The surgery went well and I spent most of yesterday sleeping off the sedatives. Now I have a fun souvenir in a jar…

I had blood work done before the surgery and my numbers came back much better than we expected. My hemoglobin and white blood cell counts are back within healthy numbers and for that matter all my numbers are back in the healthy human range. This is awesome as most of the sources we looked at said that it could take 6 months for the body to recover to normal. Though that also means my being out of breath while swimming in the last couple weeks is from being weak sauce, not Cancer. Time to get motivated and back in shape as soon these holes in my neck heal up.

In other news Crystal and I were extremely happy to have Hayley, Nolan, Big Kahuna, and especially little Paige come visit last weekend.

It managed to be the only weekend of the year to rain most of the time but in true San Diego fashion it still managed to be pretty nice weather for February.

It was wonderful to see them all and Paige never ceases to amaze us as she grows and changes.

So now that my hardware is out and the doctors have cleared me I can look to the course ahead. I still need to meet with the ortho oncologist to discuss my bone healing process and that will dictate when I can ease back into different activity levels like running and impact sports and eventually diving and skydiving again.

Also great timing because I’m set to start traveling again, should be in Korea in the next month or so, then Spain, Poland, and Belgium in the next 5 months. And further out and more excitingly I should have no issues getting cleared for my next set of orders which came in two weeks ago. I’m lucky enough to stay in San Diego for another couple years and get back to an EOD Mobile Unit this fall. I was worried I would have to give up the orders if I couldn’t get cleared for operational duty. (Don’t worry, I will be deploying again but only as a staff position in “safe locations”, my days of running around the desert with guns are over). The EOD community has been more than supportive through this whole process. It would have been more than reasonable for them to recommend I get out (the doctors were talking medical retirement) and give this position to someone they can count on being able to perform. I’m very grateful for the chance to continue my career and can’t wait to focus on the mission again.

Again I appreciate the love and support all of my friends and family have shown me over the last 6 months. When I got the phone call in my office on Sept 11th letting me know that it was confirmed I had Cancer, I put the phone down with shaking hands and felt an immense weight settle on my shoulders. Facing something like this is terrifying and overwhelming, but with every person I talked to, the support was amazing and the weight a little less. Starting with my beautiful wife who I went home to that day desperate and afraid, she has shared my pain and multiplied my joy. She shouldered more than her share of stress all the while successfully earning her California Nursing License. She is my hero. We turned to our family who’s outpouring of love was more than I could imagine. Hayley taught us that we didn’t need to do this ourselves and how to reach out to those who care about us. Star taught us just how much people wanted to show their support and I’m not exaggerating when I say that every time I saw someone wearing a Rough Seas bracelet, I would get choked up. It means so much to me that while I had no choice but to think of my Cancer every day, others were willing to do the same. My parents were there for me every step of the way, with Big Kahuna taking the bald ride with me and my Mom never getting tired of listening and reassuring me in a way only a mother knows how. Thank you guys so much.

I’ve had so many people go out of their way for me in the last 6 months that I can’t even begin to name everyone, but know that the collective support of all your hands has carried me to where I am now. Even if most of my friends may first have yelled across crowded rooms that “your haircut looks terrible” or that “you look awful, like you have Cancer or something”, their ghost white faces once I tell them my situation have been priceless, and then nothing short of the shirts off their backs have been offered. I hope someday I can repay the kindness that has been shown to me.

Before this adventure I was more of an introvert and it’s been tough having my personal life on display. From having a crowd of doctors studying very detailed scans of my body and discussing my fate like I’m a lab rat and not sitting in front of them to getting used to writing this blog and feeling like a 14 year old girl on Twitter describing her sandwich, it has been difficult. I’m looking forward to pulling back into my shell a little bit and letting someone else get all the attention, hopefully for something good. Did I mention Crystal is a licensed Registered Nurse? or have you guys heard Paige say “dog” yet? (look at the baby… look at the baby…)

Thanks for joining me on the journey, and for putting up with corny Pirate jokes.

Dismissed

 Did everyone see that? Because I will NOT be doing it again…
-Captain Jack Sparrow