You Don't Have Cancer Today

The only smile big enough

My sister and her husband (Felicity White, Dan White) once gave me a Livestrong-brand shirt that says, "I now only have good days and great days." And this day, was great.

You see, the thing we know for sure about my cancer is that its evil did escape that little shoulder tumor five years ago and travel to my lungs. We know this because of the nodules they found in November 2010 and removed. Those cells sat around undetected for five whole years of quarterly CT scans before finally manning up and becoming actual visible tumors so we could find them and cut them out. There is always the chance that other cells are similarly lurking.

So You have cancer, though horrifying, is no longer the least likely thing for me to hear at any given checkup. It's happened twice, and it could happen again.

But not this day.

Today I got the all-clear. "No signs of recurrence or metastasis," as they say. Nothing suspicious here. We'll see you in four months. You don't have cancer today. And that was so much enough.

I now only have good days and today.