Health Update: Four Years Later...

It was four years ago on January 27 that I was diagnosed with NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, not the National Hockey League. Former, bad; latter good :) 

It didn't occur to me until this year that our granddaughter was born on this day a year ago. I'm sure if I thought long and hard enough -- or did some clever Googling -- I'd come up with some classic or eastern idea that correlated these two events, but I'd rather dwell on being thankful for the birthday of our beautiful granddaughter, Grace, and being grateful that my follicular lymphoma is not active.

For those of you who haven't been following my updates, here's a quick review.
  • got sick in Fall of 2013
  • was diagnosed January 2014
  • (was in watch-and-wait protocol because my CT scan was misread: YIKES)
  • did 6 months of Rituxan and Bendamustine: June - November 2014
  • (CT scan showed my swollen lymph nodes were shrunk into near oblivion) 
  • did one year (February 2015 - February 2016) -- instead of 2 years -- of maintenance treatments (every 3 months); I quit after a year because my neutrophils weren't happy 
  • CT scan shortly thereafter showed, and here I quote my Oncki-doc: "If I didn't know this was your scan, I'd say I was looking at a patient with no signs of cancer."
  • Retired from teaching high school in June 2016
I go every three months for blood work and a visit to the Walker Clinic. Apart from my neutrophils, which eventually came back to normal, and a few funky blood markers, which turned out okay as well, I've had a clean bill of health. 

My wife and I have had some awesome vacations. We're going to Hawaii in March for our nephew's wedding. We're eating healthier, taking crazy supplements, going to the gym and generally loving being alive.

Finally, I can't tell you how meaningful it has been to my wife and me to have so many of you inquiring, caring and praying for us. I've said this before, I'll say it again now: without God, my wife, my family and you, my friends, I would've done this journey badly -- so thanks for being there for me. 

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