The More Things Change...

I've had the whole day to write but  it's 7:15 and these are the first words to eke out of my mind. I was going to write about my five-mile run yesterday -- the first time in more than 6 months that I've gotten back up to the five-mile mark. But frankly, this is a cancer blog, not a running blog and I've been covering that ground a lot lately. That said - the run was great and followed it with just shy of 4 miles today. So take that cancer.

It's funny, but about a year ago, I was debating going to the lymphoma conference and wondering why I didn't write more often.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Although of course, a lot has changed in a year. In chronological order, in the last 12 months I made this blog public, went from watch and wait to active treatment, turned 50, and made it through six months of chemo.  That qualifies for an eventful year.

But I'm here on the other side of chemo feeling in some ways very similar to how I felt pre-chemo. Feeling fine (knock wood) and watching and waiting. The challenge, to me,  is not to get too hung up on the watching, and spend plenty of time on the waiting. Too much watching can be an obsessive,  anxiety producing pasttime. And not enough waiting means  living in three-month intervals, waiting for the next clean bill of health so I can say 3-months clear, 6-months clear, until what? Until I've made it past the median progression-free survival number? And then what? In the meantime, living from visit to visit tends to speed up life when I'd rather do the opposite.

I've written before about living in the moment, and enjoying those moments as they happen. It's easy to say, but hard to do.

Of course, beyond the treatment, there is one thing different from how I felt a year ago: back then  I decided I didn't feel enough like a cancer patient to go to a lymphoma conference. This year, I'm going. 

-- michael