Radiation-Free!

Yesterday was my last radiation treatment - yippee! Despite my vaginal stenosis issue, I feel fine and nurse M and Dr. P2 assured me that the skin irritation I feel inside when I do my daily passive dilation or while having intercourse will diminish with time. In fact, Dr. P2 said that I should be feeling close to normal in a month. Today, I've been procrastinating about doing my dilation exercises since yesterday's experience was horribly painful, but I just sipped some red wine and am hoping that this will relax me enough to get through the 10 minutes of self-torture.

After my last radiation treatment yesterday, I picked up E from work and we attended a reception at the Portland Art Museum for new members. There was live music, snacks and wine and we could roam about the museum or take the docent-led tours. E and I also filled out 2 raffle tickets for a prize, but we left early because our parking meter had run out and we were due for dinner at his sister's home.

We had a light dinner of Korean food, celebrated the end of my radiation treatments with cake, and caught up on each other's news. Late last night, I realized that I had a voice message on my phone and discovered that I had won the raffle prize - a gift basket full of goodies from the museum gift shop:)

I worked until 2:30am designing a small print ad for one of my clients and then had a dream-less night's sleep.

Now, my new cancer-free treatment-free life begins anew. I still have to see my gynecology oncologist, Dr. T2, every 3 months. The frequency of visits will decrease with time. Also, I have a follow-up visit with my radiology oncologist, Dr. P2, in a month, but Dr. T2 will be my main doctor from now on. My renal sonogram, following the removal of my stent, was normal, and Dr. D said that he saw no need for further follow-ups unless I start to feel anything unusual. So it feels like I can begin to heal and figure out how I'm going to live this new chance of life. It's a gift, I know, and I need to remember that life is short and I can't keep wasting it doing things I care nothing about.

From now on, I need to focus on the things that matter - my family and friends, my art career, and enjoying life as much as possible. This will be my last post on this blog for a while, unless a significant health issue regarding cancer occurs.

Someone told me that you're not a true cancer survivor until you've been cancer-free for at least 5 years. I've always been very impatient and 5 years is too long...

I'm a cancer survivor today.