"Couldn't be more normal."

TLDR: The cancer is gone.

I had my post-chemo scan this Monday. It was originally scheduled for Valentine’s Day evening and while I couldn’t give a shit about the actual holiday, I do have tickets for a play. I was told that the appointments for my scan were booked through the end of the month (my brain would literally spill out of my eyeballs if I had to wait that long) and my best bet was to call at 8 a.m. every weekday until I got a cancellation spot.

I called first thing Tuesday morning and five minutes later I had an appointment for 12:30 that afternoon. I texted my husband to let him know and he asked if I needed a ride.

“I can drive myself. It’s not a scary one. Well, not the claustrophobic kind of scary.”

He called me to make sure I was really okay. Reader, I was not okay. I really did think I was, but the second I heard his voice, I sobbed, unable to breathe.

He picked me up a couple hours later and drove me to the hospital. I drank a disgusting barium milkshake for an hour and just as I threw the cursed empty bottle in the recycling, a technician called my name.

“Patient Finkelstein?”

I followed him back to the room where they did my scan. It took fifteen whole minutes and we left the hospital.

I got my results yesterday. The Nurse Practitioner, “Linda,” called me.

“Your scan couldn’t be more normal. It’s very boring. You can look at it now. You’ll see the doctor in ten days, but tonight you should celebrate.”

I opened the app, which I had deleted days earlier, terrified I would see the results before anyone called. I clicked on the Test Results link. My eyes went directly to the second line.

“No evidence of recurrent or metastatic disease.”

I looked down the list of all my organs, the word NORMAL next to each one.

Normal.

Not diseased. Not malignant.

Normal.

I’m cancer free.

Everyone seemed quite confident that would be the case, but I am, as I’ve said, a waiting for the other shoe to drop person and I couldn’t settle until I saw it for myself.

This is, of course, not the end of all of this. I will be on two years of maintenance medications and I will be getting monthly blood tests and scans every three months and who knows what else for a while.

But for the moment (and hopefully for many more moments) I’m cancer free.

A friend took me out for a Prosecco and fried potatoes. She told the bartender what we were celebrating. A person next to us heard and they all clapped and we cried a little. The stranger offered to take a picture of us and she was so kind and it was all a blur and I hope she knows how much her support and celebration meant to me in that moment.

My husband and I went to our favorite diner in the Valley. It was classic car night so the place was packed. We grabbed two seats at the counter and I ordered my usual omelette. I intended to order their ridiculously large and decadent hot fudge cake, but my appetite is still not great so I’ll go back for that another time.

We laughed a lot. We’ve laughed a lot this whole time, to be honest. It’s the only way to get through. I think we’ve laughed harder while I had cancer than we have in our lives together.

I’m curious to see what happens next - what side effects will hang around and how the new medicine will affect me (apparently GI issues are common so look forward to posts about poop probably thank you you’re welcome). My mental health is trash - not that it was great before - but that will be a real slog for my therapist and me. CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!

I’m going to continue writing here throughout and will hopefully be more consistent now that I won’t have poison pumped into all my cells every three weeks or so. The cancer is gone, but I know for sure I am not the same person I was when it arrived.

I’ve said from the beginning that I’d like to approach this whole deal with curiosity and not fear. I’ve failed miserably, but I’m going to keep trying. There’s still a lot of work to do and I’ve got time to do it.

Thank you for being here, as always. Thanks for reading. I hope it’s helped you in some way. It’s for sure helped me.