When Kathleen and I returned home from the January appointments described in the prior post, we had a long conversation in the driveway. We’ve been doing a lot of that since last May. In that dialogue, we discussed the feeling of disappointment that I described previously. And we were able to put our fingers on why it felt that way. In all prior meetings, there was always a visible sign of progress. After treatment began, every six weeks we were seeing the size of the cancer reduced by 50%. It was measurable, quantifiable, easy to see. This January appointment, 30 days after radiation ended, was the first time we saw no measurable progress. There was no sign of cancer. There was nothing to see. In the car, we noted that if all goes well, we’ll never see progress again, because we’ll never see anything again. And as a result, we have to reframe the way we look at things. “We have to learn to celebrate nothing.”

In months that followed the January appointments, those words stuck with me and they took on a meaning bigger than not seeing signs of cancer. They also came to mean living in the present moment, accepting it for what it was, and celebrating it for exactly that. There were no big events today? Celebrate that. The sun rose in the east? Celebrate that. It’s raining? Celebrate that too.

This is my advice to you, and I hope you are listening. Nothing is guaranteed. Don’t hold off for big things like weddings, births, graduations, promotions, and wins. There is something special about every moment. You have to learn to celebrate nothing.

We were back at Froedtert this Monday to meet with Medical Oncology and Radiation Oncology and learn the results of the latest CT Scan. Without making you wait any longer, I’ll tell you the news was as good as it gets. Medical Oncology in their typical low-key way told us the lab report on my blood draw was the best we’ve seen since the chemotherapy began. The liver and lymph nodes look clear again. And the lung looks cancer-free and the scar from radiation is smaller than last time. Looking at the bones and glands, the areas where non-small cell adenocarcinoma might spread to next also show no signs of cancer. Radiation Oncology had the same interpretation of the information and was, as always, a little brighter in their approach. We go back in three months for the next round of scans.

The news is all good. There is nothing and that’s something to celebrate.