It's Perfect

My oncologist called me today. "I have to talk with you about your Flow Cytometry". I was filled with dread, since I had just had an appointment with him yesterday and he had said it would take several days for the test results. I thought, surely, it couldn't be good news. "It's perfect", he said. "It's perfect". Timidly I asked, "What does that mean?" "It means you have zero cancer in your blood". I was shocked into silence. "It's perfect", he repeated, smiling into the phone. I asked a couple of questions about the bone marrow biopsy I have yet to do. He believes the blood test is more sensitive, but we need to do the bone marrow biopsy to be certain. I asked if I could be happy now about the news. He said that I could start jumping up and down. Again, to quell his disbelief as well as mine, he repeated, "There's zero cancer in your blood. It's perfect."

As I write this I am still in disbelief. I walked around in silence with myself for over an hour when I first got the news, trying to incorporate the hugeness of the test results. Seven years ago almost to the day - July 11, 2001, I was diagnosed with CLL. I have had this dragon breathing down my back, taking pieces of my life away and making me extremely ill the last few years. And now today, I am told that I have zero cancer in my blood. I've lived with knowing that I have an incurable cancer with no possibility of remission. However, today I'm beginning to believe I just won the lottery that matters; the lottery of getting a remission, the lottery of the gift of life. As I sit in silence with my thoughts and feelings still mulling things over, I think I will borrow my doctor's words to describe how I'm feeling about life right now, "It's perfect". And you know, it really is.