Oh ho! Still alive.

I was cleaning up my iPhone photos today and realized we have done lots of stuff I have not put on the blog. Once I did try to make a post about something but the app wasn't working right and I got mad and quit.

Firstly, here is my hair. It's been two years, more or less, since it started growing. At this time in 2015 I was pretty much still bald.

It is verrrrry close to all staying back in a ponytail. Maybe 6 weeks away. I read recently on a Stage IV survivor's blog that having her hair back is "everything I dreamed it would be, and more," and IT'S TRUE. And I don't even have all my hair back yet.

That said, it's weird looking like a normal person now. People don't know I had cancer unless I tell them. And it's starting to feel like something from my past, rather than something happening in the present. That feels dangerous, to not be constantly vigilant about cancer hovering over my life, but it also feels necessary, because for more than the first two years after that surreal moment I got the news, I spent most of the minutes of every single day paralyzingly afraid.

I'm not really afraid right now. I think it's because I finally realized I can, in fact, control how I feel. I can decide how to deal with it. And right now, I feel fine. I know that if it does come back, I will regret these healthy days wasted feeling afraid.

It's interesting, though; every time I see statistics - like 99% of small localized cancers don't recur - I'm pleasantly surprised. Gosh! 99% is pretty good! Yesterday I read the results again for the Taxol/Herceptin study for treatment of Stage I cancers, and discovered anew that less than 1% of women had distant metastasis after three years. Two years ago I wrote about that right here on this very blog - you'd think I would remember it - but I know I didn't believe it at the time. Now I believe it, I guess. It's a lot easier to believe when you're 30 months out and nothing bad has happened.

[YET.]