March 6, 2002

It's 12:10am and I'm under the influence of Ativan to help me sleep but the days events have prevented any chance of that happening so I'll update. I appologize in advance for the typos you'll find and lack of coherency.

Chemo #11 was today. I wasn't expecting results from my CT Scan that I did on February 28th since I was told those would take 2 weeks to a month. But I got the results.

March 6, 2002 is the official date of my remission. The scans were clean. No cancer. It's gone. I'm so happy.

But before I get too far into that, there's more. There's always more and it's always not as fun, but it's always there. Because I dropped the bleo after my 4th cycle, my doctor feels that I should continue with the full eight cycles of chemo. That means five more chemos and puts my last chemo on May 15th (unless we get some complications). So that was pretty upsetting since, and it's entirely my own fault, I built up these expectations to finish after six cycles which would mean I would have one chemo left. That was never set in stone but 6 cycles is typical for Hodgkin's, and I hadn't felt a lump since my first cycle, etc... so I had my hopes. And then to have that suddenly wiped out is sort of discouraging. And as much as I want to just stop after six, since I have clear scans and am in remission... if I did that, and then relapsed by chance, I would kick myself so much for not following through with 2 extra cycles. And while two more months seems like a long time, if I ended now or in two weeks, I guarantee you that by the time May 15th or 16th rolled around, I'd ask myself why I didn't spend the past 2 months getting chemo.

I suppose it would have been really nice had the doctor explained to me when we removed the bleomycin that that also means I would be getting eight cycles. But I guess that didn't occur to him. But what wasn't done, wasn't done. What needs to be done, needs to be done.

More importantly, these two "events" are disconnected, I've realized. I've got some more chemo to do, more than I expected, more than I wanted (obviously), more than I hoped for, etc... But I'm im remission. I've beat it. There's no cancer in me. Chemo won't take me out of remission. Stopping might.

But regardless, right now, for the first time since September 14th, 2001 I can go to bed knowing there is no cancer in my body. I can go to sleep tonight knowing that in the matter of six months I've realized the greatest dream of my life. I can wake up tomorrow knowing I succeeded in overcoming the hugest challenge of my life so far. Knowing that, I'm convinced I can get through the next two months.

Chemo itself went OK today. My arm came up with some hive type thing that wasn't really a hive because it wasn't itchy or painful and wasn't as red as hives normally are. But everyone looked at it and said "ew I don't know" so they put a cold pack on it, gave me some hydrocortizone (Wednesday is H day for random drugs for random problems). It's gone now, who knows. It wasn't along the vein they were using, off to the side, and one point it looked kind of like a star but then turned into a circle. Quite fun. I knocked another 10 mg off my prednisone today down to 40. Don't stop movin baby.

I feel my normal post-chemoday bluh but nothing special. Actually I feel pretty good becuase I'm happy. Remission. Wow.