Cancer: IN REMISSION

We got the news last week and we've been sitting on it, because, well, we're still processing it, but the doctor has officially pronounced Cathy In Remission. This mean that she is currently cancer-free. It does not mean we are off the hook. The next year to two years will be regular blood labs and follow-up appointments. Type 3 Ovarian cancer has a middling-high chance of recurrence, though that is mitigated by a number of factors, including how well the patient responded to chemotherapy. Cathy responded very well to the chemo, so well, in fact, that in the event of a recurrence, chemotherapy as an option is still on the table.

These are all good things, and we are grateful in our profound relief, exhausted in our awareness of how lucky we got. Right now, Cathy is focusing on getting back on her feet. There's something about aggressive cancer treatment, surgery, and pneumonia that really takes it out of a person, you know?

I'm healing, too. Slowly. Oh. So. Slooooooowly. But I am healing.

We are currently bracing for bad weather and trying to figure out what the rest of our life looks like. For now, the good news is enough.

Thanks for taking this journey with us. You are a big part of the reason why we got through it.

Five Things That Are Ruining Movies

1. The misuse and over-application of the word “trope.”

2. The misuse and over-application of the concept of a “plot hole.”
3. Deeply unqualified people telling me why the movie sucked.

4. Catastrophically angry people excoriating directors, producers, and writers for not doing enough.

5. Eagle-eyed detail-oriented people ticking off all of the mistakes a movie made, implying that the film would otherwise be a cinematic gem if X hadn’t gotten in the shot or if the scrambled eggs didn’t stop moving around on the plate in that one scene.

There’s an old saying that Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth. Well, movies are a collaborative effort between the actors and around seventy or eighty cooks. Mistakes get made. Movies aren’t a perfect story-telling medium and never have been. What they can do, they do very well, and more effortlessly than ever these days, thanks to ginormous budgets and super sophisticated computers. But “perfect” or “nearly perfect” movies are so rare, and I can’t think of a single one made after 2001.

Health Update: A Mixed Bag of Nuts

I'm sorry it's been a while since I let you nice people know what's going on in our Saga of Middle-Aged Wellness. It's kind of been a "no news is good news" sort of thing, wherein Cathy was back on chemotherapy, and it was doing a number on her, but it wasn't anything we hadn't dealt with before--just maybe a little more severe, but we were really close to being done with it, so let's just power through to the end and celebrate, right?

Right. Well, sure, if that were all that was going on.

Cathy finished her chemotherapy last week. It was awesome, in that it was a real relief to be out of those woods, but unfortunately, she was too weak to even celebrate properly. However, we did ring the bell at the treatment center. It's a rite of passage, not unlike when you leave Long John Silver's and you're pretty sure you didn't get a food-borne parasite from eating at LJS. Only this is better because you didn't have to eat at LJS to ring the bell.

Next week, Cathy gets a CT scan, and if it's clear, then we are officially Done With Treatment and go into maintenance mode. This means getting blood work done every three months, for at least one or two years. They are very vigilant because of the change of a re-occurrence. Aside from that, we get to go rejoin the adult world.

Or so we thought.