I have been trying to think up a way of putting a bow on this blog as I shift to a maintenance mode for my treatment.  All of the heavy lifting is over.  Now I am just going in for blood work every four months for two years then every six months for five years.  I will be getting an annual CT scan for five years.  Then I will be on a regular schedule for a colonoscopy as well.  I can only hope that everything stays clean and I hit all of my benchmarks during this time.

Now that I am at end of this journey I have reached some personal goals that I set for myself from the very beginning:

I have been a part of the St. Jude Track coaching staff for some years.  In October, I ran into the head coach and he had just learned about my diagnosis.  I told him of my treatment plan and that I should be ready by spring for this season.  It would have been easy for me to walk away since Michael had moved on to Roncalli and I didn't have any kids on the team.  But I needed some small goal to pull me through the winter.  That goal was to coach again.  It worked out because the season coincided with the end of my chemo treatments and my final surgery was scheduled in the middle of the season during a slow week of practice.  Even through I could not run with the kids, I was able to stretch out a little with the them and be active during practice.  I don't think most of the kids knew my situation which is fine with me.  (During practice, I could tell when my ostemy bag become exposed as the kids would start to look at my waist.  I would just tuck it back up into my sweatshirt and move on.  I imagine some of the kids thought I was wearing a fanny pack.)  And it was worth the effort as the Girls teams swept all divisions (4th grade, 56, and Cadet) for the second year in a row and won the Overall Title for a Three-Peat and the Boys teams won the Overall Title for the second year in a row. 

One of the hardest parts of this journey was telling my friends of my diagnosis.  One of the first people that I told is a friend that I have known all of my life.  I told him that I was coming over to his house with a couple of beers. I reached into my cooler and pulled out a couple of Zimas for us to drink.  He laughed and couldn't believe it.  I waited for him to get that first sip from the bottle and said, "I brought over these shitty beers because I have some shitty news. I have colon cancer."  We stood in his kitchen and had a moment.  It took a long time but I forced us to finish those Zimas.  I will speak for the both of us when I say that those were the worst drinks that we had ever had.  But we decided that when everything was over, we would celebrate with something better.  I have hit my goal and we will be going out for a better cocktail very soon to celebrate.

Finally, I think this is a nice reflection of my last 10 months and the promise of better days in the future.  So I will leave you with some lyrics by George Harrison:

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right