One year later...

It has been one year since my diagnosis.  1/11/11.  What an easy date, and yet the realization of 1/11/10 didn't hit me until tonight.  At a local Livestrong Colorado meeting tonight, we eaqch went around and discussed our connection to cancer.  That's when I realized what today meant.


They say cancer patients never forget their dates, and I guess I technically didn't, but I sure didn't wake up and have it on my mind all day.  I consider this both great and disappointing at the same time.  


I had thought to maybe quietly mark today somehow, although I never really finalized how.  I didn't have big plans, and as I noted in October, today means far less to me than my remission day or last chemo day.

I don't really feel the same way about my diagnosis day.  It certainly wasn't a "take charge attitude" sort of day.  Maybe quiet acceptance in my case.  Having said that, it seems appropriate enough to designate a day to raise awareness.  Granted, the "cancer community" has a lot of these types of days, but, let's be honest:  we need them all.  I likely won't do much to mark my own diagnosis day, but I do have big plans for my remission day, and probably my last chemo day.  

So the day never really got marked beyond going to a Livestrong meeting, which was coincidental.  I'm not sad to see 2010 go, for obvious reasons.  Only 11 days in, 2011 is already much, much better than 2010 was.  So much has changed in a year.  I couldn't even begin to catalog all the changes.  As Sarah has also noted several times - "it almost doesn't even seem real."   This too is both great and very sad.  If I sit and think about it, it is unbelievably real.  Unrelated to my diagnosis, today I did reflect on some very long meetings at work where I could barely hold myself together due to extreme fatigue, nausea, and taste changes.  I don't think I'll ever forget what those chemo days were like.  There are still foods I won't eat, and I haven't  had a ginger ale, my previous miracle, since probably 1/2 way through chemotherapy.  I probably could get one down, but there is no part of me wanting it.  At the same time, it does feel like it was so long ago as to be another life, and in a sense it was.


I haven't blogged in a long time:  not much to say, despite a ton of things going on.  I do have a race coming up, and participating with Team Livestrong means raising some money, which I'll be doing soon.  I also recently spoke on the phone with Jonny Imerman of Imerman Angels.  I have been trying to get set up as a mentor for months, and now it is all finalized until they find someone for which I can be of help, and so I'm very excited about that.  One of our good friends continues his fight with cancer, which has made me scared and angry.  The rumors are true:  my career has taken a very sharp turn down a very different path which I am excited about.  Sarah and I are finally taking a much needed relaxing vacation to a place which is very important to us next month.  Lucy is now a year and a much mellowed-out boxer, and technically an adult dog we are told.  Where was that when Sarah was at her wits end between the dog and my uselessness?  I'm still riding, and have been trying to learn a new discipline on the bicycle.  My next oncology follow up is in February, and I'll let you guys all guess how the anticipation of that goes.  In other words, I've been living, or as a family friend likes to say, "Life goes on."  Thankfully, that is true for me.