5 Years in Remission!!! Yeah, Baby!!! YEAH!!

Today is a huge day for me. Today I have reached my 5-year remission mark. However, that is not to say I’m cured. I’m far from being cured. My doctor told me five years ago that the cancer might come back. And while at times that can feel like I’m walking around with a ticking time bomb ready to go off, it also helps me to live each day to the fullest and be grateful for all the blessings in my life.

There are concerns. The chemo and radiation have left lasting effects and as the years continue other problems arise because of the treatments I’ve gone through. I have to stay on top of aches and pains and colds and sinus infections. Whenever something isn’t feeling right, the doctors are not in a position to rule anything out until the proper tests are performed. The fear that cancer cells might have been left in my body and are growing is all too real and ever-present and sometimes looms over me.

Blood tests, CT Scans, X-Rays are now part of my normal vocabulary. I worry about my brother as siblings of patients with Hodgkin’s disease have a three times higher risk than the general population.

Cancer is unpredictable and there is no guarantee and the best I’ll ever get said from a doctor is, “There is no sign of the disease.”

All this being said those patients who were staged like me have a 90% survival rate at the 5-year remission mark. That makes me want to do the “Happy Kathy Dance”. That doesn’t mean that I won’t get sick again, in fact the older I get the more likely it is, but for now I’m doing great. I have much to be thankful for. While I am dealing with a few health concerns at the moment, none of them have been tied to cancer – at least so far they haven’t. I’ll go into that later on another blog. For now, I have a birthday to celebrate!!

Love to you all,

Kathy

1 Peter 5:7