Jane and I went in for my 3 month check up to see Dr. Goodman. I am happy to report that I am still cancer free.

Around the summer of 2006 I was diagnosed with a fourth stage (the last one) lymphoma. I got lots of straight talk and dire warnings about what was headed my way. You can’t ever really prepare for that kind of thing, but I wasn’t ever really scared for some reason. Maybe I was just naive. I went through six rounds of CHOPR treatment, followed by 3 more ICE treatments and an intense stem cell transplant (my own stem cells). The CHOPR was rough on me, but I was able to ride my bike between treatments with a little help from friends. The stem cell treatment got me about as close to death as I’ll ever want to be (short of actually dying).

A while back, Dr. Goodman mentioned to me that a woman wanted to talk to me over the phone. She was going to have the same type of treatment that I went through and wanted some support. To be honest, this was a little scary for me but I accepted. I have a hard time cheerleading the stem cell transplant since it pretty much wrecked my body at the time. The important part is though, it completely ruined the cancer. You have to deal with the awful to get the good. Life has always been that way.

We were in the doctor’s office talking about the fact that I had never received that call.

“I’m not sure I would of had anything positive to say about the experience. I felt like I was on my death bed,” I told Jane.

She said something like, “It was scary, but you never said that you felt like you were dying. I’m not sure what I would have done in your shoes. I say ‘I’m dying’ all the time like when…”

“Like when you have bad gas?”

“Exactly”