Mondays often give working people fits of dread. I was actually kind of glad today rolled around. Today’s visit with the endocrinologist brought further confirmation that the results of my recent scan and blood work were unambiguously good. She was fairly ebullient in her delivery of her interpretation, which was gratifying.

In fact, this whole episode has been gratifying. Despite the indignities cancer puts us through, I can’t muster any anger at it. Some might say that that’s because my experience has been easy. In contrast, I would say that, unless you’ve been through the doubt and the anxiety (even if it isn’t the first thing on your mind, it is there at depth), especially after a recurrence, you cannot really know. No, even though I’ve had those doubts and anxieties associated with recurrence, I am grateful for all the care and compassion others have shown to me, and the lessons cancer itself has taught me – and will continue to teach me. 

For right now, I’m considered cancer-free. I’ll get another ultrasound and more blood work in December. Dependent on those results, we’ll talk about the timing of the next I-131 scan. I’ll try to not look too far ahead, because that’s one of those lessons cancer tries to teach us. But however long my timeline stretches out, I will always be dependent on medication to replace my missing thyroid and on medical technology to monitor possible further recurrences. 
I’ll try to keep in mind the capricious and impermanent nature of an individual life, and the incongruity of that temporal status and the enduring nature of life itself. None of us as individuals is particularly important in the grand scheme of things, despite how our minds occupy us in endless me-centric exercises. I’ll also try to keep in mind that life itself is sweet while it lasts, and that we’re supposed to spread joy as a tribute to that sweetness. I think living a contented existence is a fitting tribute to the lives of my cancer brethren who are currently facing challenges, and those who already did so and either came out on the other side or had their lives come to an end as a result of cancer.
It appears that Mondays are not so bad after all. 
So, with all that in mind, I give you this almost-quote: Excessive joy in the celebration of Bill’s cancer-free status has been approved. http://www.wavlist.com/movies/322/tbb-violence.wav

I know. In my last post, I warned about getting too enthusiastic, about irrational exuberance. I’m nothing if not a disciplined fellow, so avoiding such displays comes naturally to me. It won’t be until this Monday (3 days away as I write this) that I see my endocrinologist for the official doctor’s pronouncement, but I received news today that I felt warranted feeling pretty good about. 

Oh I know – there are about a million reasons to temper joy. So many of my cancer brethren are dealing with the unpleasantness which comes along with the diagnosis. Some of them I know, like my friend p whose life was taken by cancer a week or so ago, or my cousin g whose abdominal discomfort turned out to be the pancreatic cancer he’s dealing with now. Some of them I only know through their association with people I know, like m’s mom and r’s brother. And that’s just some of the cancers I know about. There is the larger issue of the way my culture treats the planet, and every living being, and the rocks and hills on it. 

But darn it, sometimes you can’t help it. Today was like that for me. I got the results from my most recent blood work. The level of anti-thyroglobulin antibody in my blood has gone from 32 IU/mg after my June 2014 surgery (it was 62 IU/mg before the surgery) to 4.65 IU/mg in a sample from June 26 (2015). “Normal” is less than 4.11 IU/mg, so 4.65 IU/mg isn’t perfect. But it is pretty darn good, and trending down is a good thing.
Sadness and seriousness will always be there. You know they will. But sometimes, you just feel like clapping along, because you feel like happiness is the truth. Because you’re happy.   

The endocrinologist’s office called yesterday, with good news. My scan last week was free of unusual uptake (in other words, clean). It isn’t foolproof, but we’ll get further word in fairly short order when the blood test results for the anti-thyroglobulin antibody come in. It is one line of evidence among several to provide a snapshot on my recovery. I’ll take it as good, remembering to avoid unwarranted euphoria. 
A little while ago, I received the news that my friend P died this morning. His situation was much more serious than mine, and, given recent developments, not really unexpected. He had been suffering in recent months, though he might have opted to hang out longer anyway, had he been given the choice. 
The longer we live, the more it becomes apparent that the web of life is such that, if we cast our view wide enough, our good news occurs with almost simultaneity with someone else’s bad news. Life curves back on itself, our understanding of connectedness hopefully grows, and we learn that what, in another context Alan Greenspan called “irrational exuberance” is probably an immature reaction. Such exuberance might seem desirable attimes, but it is often hard to shake the idea that it is perhaps a fool’s errand, too.
Life as we experience it is impermanent. Our possessions and our experiences are transient. Even our legacies are temporal, viewed from a broad enough perspective. Now is what we have. Let us make it count. Farewell, P. I enjoyed our time together, how we understood the fleeting nature of life and still could laugh. You go on ahead, it looks like I’ll be here for a bit.   
If the sea was glass, and the land all gone

Would you still be a friend to me?

When my time is passed, is it too much to ask

For a little bit of sympathy?