Anniversary dates and Cancer

When the new calendar year is just around the corner, I perform the task of transfering birthdays and dates to my new office studio wall calendar. The one date I have been transferring for the past 4 years is this . years ago last drop of chemo in my system It is worth celebrating, and worth taking a moment to ponder on. The journey was insane, I have never felt so much fear in my life, well, aside from jumping out of an airplane to tandem Skydive for a Radio stunt. Really?!? Chemo is relentless. The taste, the warm juice felt flowing through my blood weeks at a time, the beeping sound of the pump hooked to my port that would drip the chemo in me for 48 hours after my 4 hour infusion. The incredible weak state it would leave me in for days at a time. My dear friends that drove me, dropped me off and the 2nd friend who picked me back up. Some friends sat with me the whole time. My husband only did it once.I don't think he could handle watching me wiping away my tears for the entire 4 hours on my first infusion...and hearing my nurse say gently, "Can't we get a little smile out of you today Trish?"...no. No. No....I couldn't smile during that, I was on a mission to just get through it. I would look around that room, all of us patients with blankets over us to keep warm as we were always so cold, and participate in the small talk about their cancers, and if this was first round or 2nd. Yes some have had 2nd rounds...I ask myself that, if it ever came back would I go through chemo again....I don't think so.....the flood of feelings are too much. Everytime I have to go back to the same office for my routine quarterly blood work, I watch the patients slowly walk out from their infusions and my heart aches deeply for them. The journey just can't be forgotten.So here I am 4 years later, and the scribble on my March 23rd date is "4 years last drop of chemo in my system" Hallelujah for that scribble. Thank you to Adam, Jeff, Marcia Bergendahl, Denise Croghan, Mike- my brother, Liz Connolly, Cheryle Silveira, Karen Sorenson, LauraJean, Eme Aqua, Lori Fabianic, Bobbi Cauchi(shared that martini on that last day!), Erin Goldsbrough(who brought me to Boz while in chemo treatment and arranged for me to FINALLY meet him!) JoAnn Manchester,Phoebe and her family, The Valley Christian Football Moms, my cousins, my Aunts, my other brothers, my radio colleagues, the FB well wishers, all my friends who sent cards and checked in on me, visited me at the hospital, damn you pushed me, and it was good. Now I am finally participating in my long overdue cancer support group and yoga for cancer patients classes, and remaining sympathetic to anyone having to endure this crappy disease. This week I will stop procrastinating and make all my routine appointments for this year, and try not to get lost in the yucky-ness of all that it reminds me of...instead I will push through and I will stare at that square box on my studio calendar and smile at that scribble: "4 YEARS AGO FREE FROM CHEMO!" Thank you God for my life today.