No, this isn’t an announcement of my status as a cancer survivor, though that will be nice when the time comes. It’s a reference to the very popular TV series that debuted twenty years ago. You know how the show works. Contestants are dropped off in a remote, isolated location where they need to find a way to eat, build shelter, create fire, and locate water to survive while trying to avoid elimination. Well, after a few seasons of seeing what happened to the contestants in the aftermath of the show, the producers of Survivor began warning family members about the experience, telling them that you’re loved one is going to come back to you, but they’re going to come back to you forever changed by this experience.

Last Friday was the official end of Round 6 of the chemotherapy treatment, the end of that three-week cycle. Under the usual pattern, I would have received a new infusion last Friday. But this was the end of the scheduled treatment program. Now we are on a brief pause. A new CT Scan will be taken this Wednesday. We will get the results of that scan at an appointment with medical oncology on Friday and follow up with radiation oncology next Monday. Coming out of those meetings we will enter a new phase in this journey.

No matter what the CT Scan shows on Wednesday, I know that I have already been forever changed by the diagnosis and treatment—by my time in the Third 500—which has given me a very clear picture of what I need to do and how I want to live next. So, I fully intend to come back to you but I suspect I might be and do a little different. Long live the difference.