CANCER : DAY 227 PET SCAN – Success!
The result is Success
I received good news on Friday July 9th. My doctor had already informed me of the positive results but I’m sharing the text from my radiologist here.
“Hi Gary
Tried tio ring you with the good news.
Previous hot spot neck gone and remainder of body completely clear.
In response to apprehension, yours and mine, “Oh Yea of little faith”.
Ring me if you need further clarification and we’ll touch base down the track.
Sam”
Have you ever been on a long journey that was jam packed with surprises, discovery, adventure, car breakdowns, occasional dismay and a touch fear, anger, joy and even boredom but overall was a ripper of a road trip and as you approach the end of your journey you start to notice a nagging thought “What am I going to do when I get there?”
As you drive along the road you have such a sense of purpose. Never really knowing what might appear around the next corner. Always anticipating the possibility that something new, exciting and unique is about to happen.
Then you get to the outskirts of the destination and you look back and realise what an amazing trip you’ve just had and maybe have a sense of loss for what you have just lived through, a feeling of disappointment that it might be over for now.
I suppose that could be said for any period of your life, after all you only have one option and that is to keep on inventing it.
I have been on the road for the past 227 days. I set off in the early afternoon on Tuesday November 24th, 2020. It was an unexpected trip that I had not prepared for but once I hit the road I embraced it with a passion that fuelled me and drove me. The funny thing is that I didn’t have a clear picture of my exact destination or any real idea of what I was planning on doing when I got there. That didn’t come up during the journey, I was just going somewhere and when I arrived in one piece I had no idea what would happen next.
Yesterday I arrived.
There was no fanfare, no real sense of accomplishment, no gushing exuberance. I had already experienced all of those feelings along the way. My trip was an experience that I will treasure. The details are all recorded in my blog. Each and every day.
Howeever, underlying everything there really is a deep sense of fulfilment and accomplishment.
Yesterday I got the results of a PET Scan that confirmed that the malignant cancer that was diagnosed 227 days earlier was no longer showing up in my body.
I already knew with a quiet arrogant confidence that this would be the outcome so being told by somebody else was somewhat of a reassuring anti-climax. Don’t get me wrong. I am supremely grateful. I am overwhelmingly pleased and delighted that all of the study and hard work that I have done, all of the help and support that I have received from others, all of the self discipline that I have applied, all of the new therapies that I tried out have helped me to arrive at my destination in a far better condition – physically, mentally and spiritually – than I was in when I began this journey.
That is what I am excited about.
Freedom from cancer is a huge accomplishment but freedom to plan and create the next potential 30 years of my life is the real prize.
I have become aware that every positive action that I apply now is an investment in the coming years and decades. Preventing, maintaining, rebuilding, understanding, giving, preparing, learning and gratefully acknowledging are my tools to create a life that will be fulfilling, interesting and adventurous. A life that I will be in control of, a life that I will be actively creating, a life in which I will be hopefully prepared for anything that presents itself as a potential obstacle or threat.
This is the reward that I just discovered at the end of my current journey and having realized this with a clarity that I didn’t have when I started writing this morning. This is what made the journey I have just been on worthwhile.
Now I can feel the exuberance and hope well up inside me and re-ignite the magical phenomenon which is my life.
