Every Six Months, Dodging a Cancer Bullet

I see my cancer doc, Sean Mullally, every six months.  Ever since October 2014, when I felt a lump in my groin, I’ve had to become familiar with the lingo and procedures of cancer.  Something nobody wants to do.   But at the time I got my diagnosis, which is called SSL Lymphoma, I was assured by every medical person I met that it wasn’t a fast growing cancer, and wasn’t going to kill me.  I’ll take that any day.

But of course, cancer requires vigilance, and so every six months I steel my nerve and after getting blood checks, I wait in the Mass General Cancer Center at Cooley Dickinson Hospital with dread.  It takes a while for the doc to come, and today, the first thing he said was “your blood tests look good!”

I don’t think there are more powerful words in the English language, do you?

So, as he felt my nominally swollen lymph nodes in a few places, and we talked about skiing in Japan, I was pleased when he said. “You’re good for another six months,” and with a smile.  He advised me that he does a lot of push-ups, as many as 500 in one day. So I think I am going to take up push-ups to go along with my regular running routine.

I feel great and now that this is over with, I can move ahead with work, family, travels–all of the things I would rather think about than the Big C.  Make that the small c.