Finally, I’m done.
One surgery and twelve gruelling chemotherapy sessions later, I’m sitting at the end of my treatment path. Well, I will be when I have my take home infuser disconnected on Sunday.
Finishing treatment is rather anticlimactic. I rang the bell to celebrate the end of this chapter, but will be disconnected from my therapy alone in a community care office two days from now.
Two hundred and forty six days ago, almost to the hour, I found myself sitting in a surgeon’s office, learning the results of a battery of testing that I’d undergone the week prior.
Regardless of anything else that was said that day, only three words truly mattered: “You have cancer.”
The optimist in me had some hope that it was early stage, curable with surgery alone, but that obviously wasn’t in the cards for me. Instead, I learned that I was going to be living in cancerland for the long haul, dealing with locally advanced colon cancer.
And, so I live.
Like many who reach the end of treatment, I currently have no evidence of disease. This means that, for the time being, I have returned to the Kingdom of the Well. I hope to reside here for as long as possible.
There is nothing to do but enjoy life and wait to see if cancer crops back up. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Over the next four weeks, I’ll be recovering from the side effects of chemotherapy (which will actually take about eight more months), before returning to work full time toward the end of November.
Now that I’m no longer undergoing treatment, I have to learn who I am in a post-cancer world.
Survivorship is a new phase, which will come with its own set of unique challenges. I’ll continue focusing on my mental wellbeing through this next chapter.
I’ll also continue to publish regular updates as I navigate everything that comes next. There is some advocacy and advisory work in my future, too.
Thank you for following along and for the support.
