The 21st on the 21st.

Life is for living, so I am ready to get back to doing some of it. Most of everybody knows by now, that my PET scan results came back clean on the 18th and that I am now officially cancer free. The phrase remission is also used in this situation as well, but I like cancer free better. I had a CT scan on Monday the 18th as well that will be used as base line for my future scans. I will be scanned every 3 months for a year to make sure there are no more cancer cells trying to build something in that same area again. I received those results today and it was mostly good news except that I do have a lymph node that did not shrink to under one centimeter as the doctors had hoped. The size of it is right on the cusp of requiring it to be removed surgically(it's size in 1.077). I meet with my E.N.T. next week to get his opinion as to whether I should go ahead and take it out and be done with it. My thought is that if there in any chance that taking it out will decrease the chances of the cancer reappearing, I will not hesitate removing it and schedule the surgery that same day. Leaving the node in may be leaving a additional place for cancer cells to grow and reproduce and I don't want that. It is not to complex a surgery and does not require a nights stay in the hospital. So I will let you know how that conversation goes next week. It has been a crazy week for Andrea and I. The news on Monday took a while to sink in for us and it was almost unreal. We called our families first and the tears of joy began to flow. After calling as many people we could get a hold of, I e-mailed other folks and even posted a status on facebook. I wanted to tell everyone I knew personally that I was cancer free, but soon realized that was going to be impossible. It was quite a relief at last to know that my life was not going to be cut short by this disease. So many thoughts and what ifs were going through my head at the time we got the news, that when the doctor finally came in to give us the news so calmly, I thought there was a chance he was joking with us. When I realized that this was not a good idea for him, I just did not know what to say. A sense of relief flowed through my body like nothing ever before. Andreas looked at me and said "see, I told you so". I personally thanked him for the good work he had done with my case, which I know was not a easy one for him. He tried to deflect the attention to others in a modest way, but I know that the radiation treatments he administered played a big part in riding me of this. I am thankful to all the people at Piedmont who worked to diligently over the last 5 months in getting me to this point in my recovery. I still have little way to go to get back to my normal self, but with there help and my loving family and friends, I know I will make it back to living the full life I did before all this happen.