Free At Last! Free At Last!

Thank God Almighty I am free at last! Martin Luther King, Jr. might have originally said those words in a different context but they are no less true for me today. This past Friday I went to my oncologist's office and was disconnected from my chemo treatment for the last time. It was pretty exhilarating to be finally off the "juice", but to be fair and honest, if my doctors think that post-op treatment is necessary to help prevent my cancer from ever returning and the "juice" does its job, then whatever pain and inconvenience it may have caused me will have been worth it.

Cyndy surprised me on Friday by showing up for my appointment, as these disconnects had been one of my few appointments that she hasn't been coming to (or should I say "to which she hasn't been coming." After all, a preposition is a bad word to end a sentence with.). On my previous disconnect it was a rainy Friday and I had late appointment. There was a major traffic light outage on my route which I didn't know about until I heard it on the radio traffic report. It caused me to be late, as I had Cyndy call the office to let them know I would be there after they closed at 5:00. I did make it by 5:15 and was able to get quickly taken care of (the nurses said they would have still been there for awhile anyway). So this past Friday, another rainy afternoon, I'm sailing along to my 4:30 appointment when all of a sudden traffic comes to a sudden halt. As we creep forward, I notice police lights and cars changing lanes so there must have been an accident ahead. And this happened at the same intersection as the light outage four weeks before. This time I turned down a side road and avoided the rest of the mess (which is what I should have done the other time). I called Cyndy at her office to tell her of this unfortunate coincidence but was told by a co-worker that she was "away from her desk." I thought nothing of it and continued on (going about 65 to make up time, but don't tell the police that). As I was going into the building, Cyndy returned my call, so I figured she had returned to her desk. We were talking as I approached the office but when I pushed open the door to go in, there she was sitting in a lobby chair on her cell phone to me! (Her co-worker who had taken the call and was in on this subterfuge, had called Cyndy on her cell phone to tell her I had called the office.) Cyndy thought the final disconnect was something special and she wanted to be there for it, even if it only took five minutes. And why shouldn't she have been? She has been there for me throughout this ordeal the whole way, my rock and my support.

I meant to write this yesterday but I didn't get to it. You see yesterday was the 24th and marked the seven month anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. In fact the 24th date has been significant during this time, as my surgery to remove the tumor was also on the 24th (of June). On the one hand, the seven months have flown by, but on the other hand it seems like it has been a lot longer than that, if that makes any sense, since it has obviously dominated my life during that time. But now as I look forward, cancer-free and only needing to have follow-up doctor's visits and periodic testing the rest of my life to make sure everything is OK, I feel blessed and extremely fortunate. I know this ultimately could have turned out a lot worse if I hadn't gone to a doctor when I did and if I hadn't followed all the care my superb doctors provided to me. And I certainly thank God Almighty for watching over me and blessing me with this recovery. I guess he's not done with me yet. So I'd better get crackin'.