Six years later ... Still Cancer Free!

Six years ago, today, I got the worst phone call in my life. Bad news. That lump we removed? Cancer.

http://cancergeek.squarespace.com/cancergeek/2005/9/9/bad-news.html

My life changed from that moment on. I became a cancer victim. I also immediately became a cancer fighter. I then fought through my own personal war with battles which seemed worse than hell itself. But, to be honest looking back at them now, they were actually quite relatively easy in comparison to so many battles I have heard about since. Eventually I became a cancer survivor.

Last year I hit that extremely important 5-year milestone. I had watched my survival odds evolve over the years: 20% that first year, 40% the next, 60% the next, 80% the next and finally... we all agreed: I have survived. I hated those odds. As a tech geek I was obsessed with the numbers and the overload of information I could get... everywhere. 

Now it's 6 years and I am still cancer free. I still have a few handicaps which will most likely stay with me forever:

• the rather obvious scars (neck & chest),
• the constantly dry throat and constant need for water, 
• the inability to eat dry foods (bread, pasta, rice, ...) without some form of sauce, 
• the inability to smoke anything, 
• the inability to drink undiluted spirits, 
• the Kryptonite-like aversion to certain chemicals, which make me choke with coughing spasms, such as nail varnish (polish) remover
• acutely weakened eye-sight (tri-focals from now on)
• and lately the apparent, and extremely frustrating, effects of Chemo Brain

I've learned to live quite well and quite happily with those little handicaps. I often forget that I have them and try to do something normal like bite in to the end of a baguette while walking without water... I then run to find a drink of something, anything, somewhere... quickly.

I have learned to deal with these little handicaps quite well as I certainly prefer them to the alternative: dead cancer victim.

Six years now and I celebrate often. This is just another year, of what I hope will be many, without cancer.

FUCK CANCER!