This woman's journey

I started to write this post in the airport as we travelled back from the USA! We had been there for three weeks visiting our family and friends. When I was given my diagnosis last October, my doctor said I couldn’t fly. The news not only meant I had to face treatment for cancer but also separation from my grandchildren. It was the latter that made me cry in the doctor’s office that day! I’ve had exactly one year away from my young grandsons and eight months away from my baby granddaughter. You can imagine that I’d counted down the months and the weeks and the days until I could see them again!  What a joy this trip has been to me in so many ways!

But going back to May, my last chemo was a special day of celebration! My daughter came with me and I followed the familiar routine of being hooked up to the cold cap and different infusions of drugs. We chatted with nurses and the other patients, catching up on how they were all doing. The familiarity of three weekly infusions, weekly dressing changes for my PICC line and regular blood tests had dominated my life for months. But the final one was here and we celebrated afterwards with eating lunch out at a local restaurant!

They say that the climb to the summit of Everest is a straightforward walk once the Hilary Step has been conquered. But those steps are not easy ones! The climbers wear oxygen canisters and are weak from lack of food and water. The goal of getting to the summit of the highest mountain in the world fuels their every step.  My ‘summit’ is

being  given the ‘all-clear’! Over the past few months it’s felt as if I’ve been slowly moving towards this. A CT scan in June showed up a small ‘mark’ which my oncologist thinks is healing from surgery. And my blood results are looking good. After that scan my PICC line was removed and once the wound had healed , I celebrated by going swimming! One thing I have learned through this journey is to celebrate all the little milestones along the way!

I’ve been back home for two weeks now and last week I had another CT scan to check if full healing has taken place. I get the results tomorrow……..