Healthy and Cured

That's it. I'm done. Last week, my oncologist offhandedly said, "We now consider you to be healthy and cured."

He and I were talking about the level of follow-up and screening I would now have, and he wanted to put my situation in context. So he told me that from a medical standpoint, I was not that different from other women my age. Thus, he used the phrase "healthy and cured."

Whether or not he intended it, I latched onto those three little words, and I've been basking in their undeniable brightness ever since. Good health takes on such a greater significance when it disappears for a time. When it's been regained, simple healthfulness is valued as a far more precious commodity than it was before it ebbed. As Joni Mitchell wryly observed, "Don't it always seem to go. You don't know what you got till it's gone."

While Joni was mostly referring to the environment, her words provide an excellent segue for me to the next chapter (or the next blog, if you will). Simply put, the goal is to appreciate what's around me in a literal sense, and learn how I can make more out it. Healthy body, healthy planet -- it's all so intertwined.

The internet headlines today were about a 36-year-old TV actress, Christina Applegate, who recently underwent a double mastectomy. She was diagnosed with cancer, but she opted for extra surgery because she learned that she carried the breast cancer gene. I began this blog many months ago with my own breast cancer diagnosis. As I come to the conclusion of my treatment, each week thousands of new cases are being detected. Well-known and unknown, wealthy and destitute, educated and unschooled, women of all races, faiths, and backgrounds are being told that they have breast cancer. Maybe a means of prevention is close at hand. Maybe we'll soon have better detection in order to save more lives. Keep checking here periodically, and I'll keep posting breast cancer information as I find it.

In this fight, we need to raise funds, raise awareness, raise our voices. To win this battle, we need to help each other. To be healthy. To be cured.