The End of a Chapter

This is my final post. I had a PET/CT scan two weeks ago and it was clear!! Three months after completion of treatment, I am cancer-free!! And life has moved on. I am back to work full-time, Ryan and I spent a weekend backpacking in California and a week in Colorado, we hosted his family at our place for two weeks (having company here is like going on vacation in your own town =), and we are enjoying the summer in Pacifica. My coworkers gave me a surfboard, so now I have no excuse not to learn. We are excited to be helping with the youth group at our church. I am starting a part-time/internet-based graduate program in public health through Johns Hopkins in January. Cancer has become a distant memory that I will never forget.

I have no further updates to write here. If you want to know about my everyday healthy life, call or e-mail me. I plan to print out all my blog entries and your comments and make a scrapbook out of them, so I will never forget what the Lord has done in my life over the past year.

And, of course, my final entry would not be complete without the words to part of a song. This describes how I feel about moments throughout the past year, and the perspective I feel like I've gained from the whole experience:

Sorrow's opened up my eyes
To see what real joy is
Pain has been the catalyst
To my heart's happiness.

This is the good life,
I've lost everything,
I could ever want,
And ever dream of.
This is the good life,
I found everything,
I could ever need,
Here in your arms.

What good would it be
if you had everything
but you wouldn't have
the only thing you need?

(from "Good Life" by Audio Adrenaline)

What Cancer Cannot Do (Author Unknown)
Cancer is so limited.
It cannot cripple love, it cannot alter hope.
It cannot corrode faith, it cannot destroy peace,
It cannot kill friendship, it cannot suppress memories,
It cannot silence courage, it cannot invade the soul.
It cannot steal eternal life, it cannot conquer the spirit.

The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.
Psalm 126:3