Since I will never have my shit together enough to send out a Holiday card, here is what I can get my shit together enough to send! We got an A-!

Finally. I don’t think you ever get that actual pure overachiever A if you have cancer, so A- is the actual best grade you can get. After four years of for-real-for-real just not ever knowing if we would get that good news that you really want, we got it. Clear scans. Clear scopes. Full-on no cancer. It’s kind of surreal to hear that there is a clear bill of health to celebrate for the first time since April of 2019. With that also comes intense survivor guilt, but that’s because this disease is so real and has begun to affect so many young people. If you had a tamagotchi, a raspberry lemonade lip smacker or you are team backstreet boys (Nsync = nope), get your ass checked people. Seriously. 

There will never be a time when the worry and angst completely dissolves, but we do get to live another 11 months in relative peace. May, the 12th month, scan month, is riddled with stress and coping mechanisms like stupidly opting to coach kindergarten soccer, and mediocre public school track teams, fights about birthday parties (the actual worst part of parenting in this era), and heart-wrenching silence because we both know how dark things could get. 

Big Daddy won’t ever eat another caesar salad or Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich, but this man can roll with pretty much anything after what he has been through. No “man flu” here. Plus we have the same bidet as Beyonce and Jay-Z, which I highly recommend. The new normal is an adjustment in so many ways, but if you’ve got an A-, it’s hard to complain. And he doesn’t. 

I feel like maybe we are cancer wizards now. Not Hermione/Harry level, but possibly Luna level. Stick with me here cancer muggles - we can see thestrals because we’ve been through some shit, but for now we get to wear those glasses that she wears. She sees creatures that others can’t with those glasses, and we have this shitty struggle going on that is mostly invisible on the surface. But Luna survives because she is a boss. And Big Daddy is a boss because he made it to the four year mark. One more year and he is considered CURED. 

That’s it. Happy holidays…aka scan month. Hope I never have to post one of these ever again.