I promised I'd talk more today so I'll give it a shot. I had orthoscopic surgery on the lymph nodes in my abdomen the Wednesday before last (the 12th), spent the night in the hospital, and was released the next afternoon. The doctor told me before the surgery he intended to make three incisions, but he ended up making five: one through my navel, one a couple inches below it, one just above it, and one on either side of the latter. This surgery was to determine if the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, in which case I would need two cycles of chemotherapy. They gave us the results of the test last Monday (the 17th), a fact I did not mention to anyone because I didn't want to have to discuss the results-- of the 49 lymph nodes they removed and/or checked, 2 of them had cancer. From the day after the surgery through much of this past week, I basically didn't leave my room, kept myself heavily medicated to battle the pain from the surgery, slept a lot, didn't see any of my friends, and spent a lot of time trying not to think about going into chemo. The past couple days, though, I've been feeling a lot better, hanging out with Bec and even playing some DDR, although my strength and stamina are both still pretty bad.

Friday night, however, my dad told me he'd been called by the doctor with some news: the doctor had presented my case to a board of cancer specialists and they recommended that I do not have chemotherapy. They said there is a 70% chance I am fully cured, and I should have the chemo only if another tumor develops at some point. Every month for the next two years I will have chest x-rays and blood tests done, and then once every several months for several years after that. Basically, this means that my surgeries and treatments are over and I probably don't have cancer anymore.

I'm still trying to sort out how I feel about all this. It's kind of a bittersweet victory: my treatment is done but there's a chance that's only temporary. I was preparing myself for chemo, the last treatment I would ever need, and then suddenly they told me I was finished and good to go. I guess my problem is that I don't have any real sense of closure. ... Ironically, my dad just came down to say goodnight to me and we ended up talking about this. When I was trying to explain to him how I feel now, I made a decent metaphor: Imagine you're in prison with another couple months left on your term. One day, they throw open the door to your cell and tell you you're free to leave-- but that for the rest of your life, there's a chance the police might show up without warning and take you back to jail. This is more or less the situation I am in right now.

And on a completely different note, I've been going to therapy and am trying to deal with some other issues right now also, but I feel explained-out so I'll save it for tomorrow.