For those that may not have remembered way back about 4 months ago after being told I wasn’t going to need further cancer surgery, I was given a clean bill of health due to no signs of cancer showing up.  When they told me there were no signs of cancer anymore they told me that I would be on a 4-month re-check schedule, returning to Sunnybrook for CT, PET Scans and extensive blood work.

So what’s been happening since then? Life kind of went back to what it was before albeit, with a totally different approach to things, the list is long of the emotional changes that have happened, I won’t go into details but gratitude is highest on the list.  It would be overly dramatic of me to suggest that ‘I was at death’s door’ but in the distance, sometimes I thought I could hear someone starting the engine of the hearse.  Due to the good news, I had 4 months of relief from worry and fear, maybe it was denial on my part but that time period gave me a period where I didn’t think about my Cancer, I had been told I was cancer-free – I deserved a change in thinking – right?

Towards the end of the 4-month period, I decided to take my loving partner on a well-deserved vacation so off to Cayo Coco we headed for an all-inclusive ‘let’s get pampered’  resort for 10 days.  it was magic, I believe in a previous life I must have been a fish (a shark maybe?) because I am drawn to the ocean and spent every day swimming and relaxing in the crystal clear waters.  But as always reality steps in, less than 24 hours after swimming in the ocean I’m laying on a cool slab at Sunnybrook Hospital undergoing a CT Scan to see if my cancer has returned.

Two weeks wait for the results – during which time I develop a cold, it’s hard work sometimes being positive all the time especially if you’ve had cancer. So a cough could be lung cancer, that headache yesterday could be brain cancer – 12 days to go – that backache could be bone cancer 10 days to go, constipation could be a blockage from bowel cancer 7 days to go and on and on it goes.  I’m sure that kind of thinking is not only not healthy but not normal,  I don’t know but that’s who I am sometimes.

The day arrives, off we go to Sunnybrook to see my oncologist, 11:15 appointment but we get there 30 minutes early to be sure – Sunnybrook is super efficient so not 5 minutes after I check-in we are called through, I’m thinking why are they bringing me in early – is there a problem? Even though they are efficient we wait for 15 minutes in one of the interview rooms, conversation for me is difficult so I sit there silently. My Doctor shows up.

You’re all clear… No cancer nothing out of the ordinary – see you in 4-months and we’ll check you again.

I’m too happy to cry, I feel like a fool for worrying so much, I’m reminded of something I wrote last year that faith and fear ‘can co-exist’ at the same time.  I was scared that my cancer had returned – but deep down I had faith that everything was going to be OK and for now it is.  So whatever you may be going through right now that you are fearful of, you can be scared (like I was) but deep down I want you to know ‘that it’s going to be ok you know’