It was a great day.
I woke up and my body didn’t ache from head to toe. I don’t really know why, I just felt better. Yes, I was stiff. Yes, I was sore. But when I planted my feet on the floor, the pain didn’t travel up my legs and pinch my lower back. It was more like the ordinary soreness you get a day or two after you’ve really worked your body hard.
Not only was the pain low, but the sun also made a glowing white halo around the blinds that shade my bedroom window. Weather clock said 54 degrees: Not Tahiti, but 54 and sunny at 8 a.m. in April meant a day headed for at least the 70s. And that meant top down on my new (used) convertible.
After scrubbing up in the bathroom and acquiring new minty breath, I thought about how good I felt. Good begets good; all the factors seemed to be playing in my favor, from the sun and warmth to tolerable pain and the anticipation of wind in my hair (uh, my stubbly, post-chemo hair). I was conspiring to have a very good day.
As I reached Day 21 of my stem cell transplant, my recovery hit a very scary wall. I woke up with a fever of 102 and could barely lift my head off my pillow. I felt that little tingle in the back of my throat and knew right away what it was: the common cold.
It appears right now that I have successfully beaten cancer and can look forward to a lengthy remission. My eyes well up as I write this because it has been such a battle. How long will the remission last? It looks like at least three years, and the upper end has no ceiling. There are a couple of cases out of my hospital of younger folks like me going into remission for 10 to 15 years. But these people are certainly the exception to the rule. So I’m just going to enjoy the remission and not question how long it might last.
Not long ago I got the good news from my oncologist: The five cycles of cancer treatment I have undergone have pushed me into complete remission. That made me feel great until my next day with the transplant doctor whose care I will be under for the next few months, including my autologous stem cell transplant. “There’s still some disease in your blood,” she said pleasantly. 
It never occurred to me that getting bone marrow cancer would lead to me holding a little Dixie cup while watching XXX videos in a hospital, but that’s exactly where I’m going to be in a few weeks.
For the better part of my 34 years on Earth, I’ve been that guy with the messy desk and disorganized closet, who never used a planner, who crammed his brain with stuff he couldn’t possibly remember. 
