10

Ten years ago today I woke in the morning feeling like crap.  As I got up out of bed, I felt something tugging at my chest and remembered I was connected to a chemo pump that was continuously pumping drugs into my body with the hopes that my 50% chance of having a recurrence of my colon cancer would be reduced to a smaller number.  But this day, I pushed passed the nausea, the aches and the general flu like symptoms with a little extra excitement.  Today I was going to get disconnected for the last time.

The reason, I had completed my 6 months of the Folfox chemo regimen and while I had survived it, it had definitely taken its toll on me and my body.  I tell anyone that asks, a single round of chemo isn’t really that big of a deal.  Its like having a mild flu for 6-8 days.  What is a big deal is doing it every other week for 12 rounds over 6 months.  Its a gauntlet effect that can really wear a person down.

When I started chemo I in the summer of 2004, I took excitement in the fact that the chemo would be done 1 day before New Years Eve 2004.  I liked the idea that the New Year would be a fresh start free of treatment and hopefully cancer free.

Today I sit here 10 years later and the treatment feels like a distant memory, but I still use New Years Eve as a way to celebrate a fresh start and to challenge myself to something new that will take advantage of the second chance I was given.  I’d to wish everyone health, happiness and a fresh start for something new in the New Year.