Big Week Ahead

Three years ago, on this day, I was at the Odyssey restaurant in LA on the eve our wedding  day, with several family and friends, a little nervous about the undertaking of responsibility that was to come the following day and also excited about the potential forever to come. If anyone would have asked me at the time where I expected to be 3 years later, I certainly wouldn't have said "living in Montana with the Krutzpack" let alone, "finishing up treatment for leukemia." While it isn't always rainbows and unicorns, I'm thankful for so many things that have happened in the last 3 years.

While vastly different, I feel there is one striking similarity between this date now and this date 3 years ago. Once again, I find myself on the eve of the potential forever. Tomorrow, we will head to Seattle for my bone marrow biopsy (on Thursday) that will reveal if the chemotherapy has worked and that no minimum residual disease is present (aka MRD negative), or if any leukemia cells are present, MRD positive. While I feel confident that the biopsy will come back without any MRD, I'm nervous. It's the beginning of what could be the rest of my life, and that's a pretty powerful feeling. However, unlike this date 3 years ago, I have no control over how I respond to treatment. 

If no MRD is present, no further treatment will be necessary unless I relapse at a later date. If no MRD is present, that means I try to spend the next 5 years of my life trying to stay as healthy as possible, hoping and praying that the chemo corrected my body's ability to kill cancer cells that shouldn't be there. If the biopsy comes back MRD positive, well... that means I go into transplant mode. Either way, I plan to spend Labor Day weekend in Banff with the Krutzpack and Purple Haze, our hippie van, but I would be spending the following 100 days in Seattle undergoing total body radiation, conditioning chemotherapy, and a roughly month long hospital stay while the stem cells engraft. 

It's a big deal either way the results present themselves. I'm trying to look at it as, either way, this chapter of my treatment is over. There won't be anymore 3 weeks on chemo/dealing with side effects, 2 weeks off feeling great, and then back to the grind again. After doing this cycle 5 times, it gets pretty old preparing to feel less than well every few weeks. 

I got to thinking after writing the stuff above that someone might think I'm comparing marriage to cancer. I'm not. What I am saying is I feel that I'm on the brink of a forever life changing event.

So, here I am, on the eve of the trip to where a new chapter of my life begins. It's powerful medicine, but I feel like I'm in the right mindset and physical condition to handle the challenges ahead. I'll get the results on Friday afternoon. Fingers crossed for most excellent news.

(Commence Krutzpack 3 Year Anniversary Photo Collage)

(the night the Rembot was born)

(first ever photo together)

(fishing on the Owens River, Bishop, CA)

(Observation Point in Zion NP)

(from the engagement photo session)

 (tomorrow, 3 years ago, looking fancy as hell)