Moving on with life

Cancer is a glance over the shoulder now, rather than a glaring issue in my sights. I still want to track the crazy events in my life, so I expect I will start blogging more.

The fun recent event is my son Hudson's jump (ha!) into BMX racing. I've wanted him to race, but, more than that, I wanted him to want to race. We went to the BMX track a week ago, and decided to have him race. He rode. And rode. And didn't stop until I pulled him over and told him he had to drink something and eat something.

There were four boys in his race. First place qualifies for the main and moves on in each of three rounds. Hudson was racing for the final spot. The other boy rode right into Hudson's rear wheel at the exit of turn three and fell over. And Hudson kept on riding. Third place. Pretty good, considering his BMX skill has some distance to go. He sits and pedals the whole way. No standing, no real cornering, no pumping the bumps. Just pedaling. I'm thrilled for him.

Then this past weekend, he was riding at the park during a group BBQ. Just riding. No urging from dad. He just liked riding. Makes me grin.

"You're cured."

Well, five years after being cleared by the PET scan, I went to the oncologist. He looked at the blood work, looked at me, and said, "You don't need to be here. You're cured." I'm sure he was saying other things, but that's all I really focused on. Cured. I need to go back one more time, but I'm done with lab work. The only lab I have now is my Chocolate Lab, Chase. The only Cat scans will be when my cat, Murray , checks out my lap as a place to sit. And, the most painful thing will likely be errant knees from small children while wrestling. Of course, a good side effect of the TC is now the chance of my kids making contact dropped by 50%.

I know that other folks will read this on occasion. I go back and re-read it occasionally. The last thing I have to say is, God is good, even in this sort of situation, and, while it isn't fun during the whole thing, this too shall pass.

Of course, I ought to throw the big thank you out there to all who kept an eye on me, and walked through this with me. Most of all, thanks to my dear wife, Melissa, for whom this was probably worse than it was for me. After the two bouts of cancer, then my appendectomy a couple years ago, she just looked at me one evening, and said, "I've enough of the "In Sickness" thing for a while, how about we try the "In Health" for a bit?

So, take care everyone, and God bless.

Almost done

Well, I'm done with CT scans. It's been nearly 7 years since my original diagnosis. It's been 3.5 years since chemo. From here, it's blood tests every 6 months until 5 years, then annual until ten years. I can give blood again, so I actually look forward to doing that.

I really thought cancer would change my life. It did, but not how I thought. The one thing is it allowed me to speak into people's lives when they've been affected by cancer, either directly, or a loved one. People understand that I have been there, so I have permission to talk about it.

Thankfully, my time can be focused more on others now, and less on me. I play with kids, go on walks, pet the dog. My competitive nature was pretty much eliminated. Oh, it's still there, but not like it was. If I have a strong day, hooray! If someone else has an even stronger day, hooray!

Oh, and my haircut is way shorter now.

One year clean, hooray!

I went to the CT scan today. Okay, I don't have the results yet, but I am confident it will come out clean. The radiation place is interesting. I am led to a room, asked to change into a toga-like thing, and asked to wait until I am going to have some drug (radioactive iodine) injected into me. Pretty much, it feels like a cult, and I am there for my brainwashing. I then go to the CT scan. It is a giant donut you go through. It feels a little bit like Stargate. It feels and sounds like I could be transported somewhere else suddenly. Anyway, thanks for following my journey.

Using cancer to spread awareness

Okay, now I'm getting carried away with using my cancer survivorhood as a way to reach a lot of people. This blog has been linked from roadrunnersports.com, because my picture and a blurb about being a cancer survivor was in the catalog. Then, I allowed my picture and my story to be used by the blood drive folks as a reason to give blood. Note: if you have received blood, tell people, and give a hearty thanks. If you can give blood, do it. If you hate needles, think about the folks who are getting the blood. More needles than any one person should ever have. Now, I've linked my blog to http://www.re-mission.net, a website designed to help young cancer fighters and sufferers. I plan to keep spreading this blog's locale as wide as possible. That said, I will probably actually post to this blog at least a couple of times per week. Next post: what I've been up to, and how my body is doing since it stopped getting chemo"therapy" (Sounds kinda like "shock" therapy.

Hudson on You Tube!

Well, I finally got the Hudson Chronicles on You Tube. Do a search on Hudson Chronicles, and check out his debut. Episode 1 is big cycling stars warning of his taking over the Tour, and Episode 2 is his work in the wind tunnel.

I must confess, I'm becoming fond of the Colbert Report. One thing I've noticed (okay, among the things I've noticed): He is a total softball interviewer. Not in his questions, but in his guests. Think about it: he only interviews "famous people" and "politicians." If he was a real newsman, he'd interview someone like, say, me; a guy with no major fame points, and requiring him to have interesting dialogue when the interviewee may be entirely uninteresting. So, c'mon, Mr. Colbert, show some courage and interview the likes of me! I'll crush you with boredom! I'll smother you in uninteresting dialogue! Bring it!

Evangeline Joy Mayne

We have arrival! Evnageline Joy Mayne arrived on June 20 at 6:41 a.m. She was 7 lb. 12 oz., 19 inches long. We arrived at the hospital after 5 a.m., so it was a pretty quick event. She's oh so adorable. On Sunday July 10, we were back in the hospital with her, because she had a fever of 101.8. It turns out she had a urinary tract infection, but it was kind of scary for a while. They tried to check for menengitis, which involved poking her in her lower back a bunch of times. She didn't like that. Neither did we.

Well, we are all home now, trying to get into the swing of things. Hudson adores her, almost too much. He keeps saying, "Hey baby" and "Hi baby" and wanting to kiss her again and again. Sometimes, she just wants to sleep, and it becomes quite difficult to sleep when someone three times your size keeps kissing your noggin.

So, here we are, a family of four. Pretty wild stuff.