Happy 5th Anniversary to Me!

Today is a day I thought few would remember, and less would commemorate, but surprisingly, more than just my mother called. 

Today, April 5th 2011, is the official five year anniversary of my diagnosis with Hodgkin's lymphoma. 

Today, five years back, I underwent my very first biopsy to prove the presence of cancer. 

Prior to this there was still hope I suffered from a rare lung disease called "sarcoidosis." 

After the official, "you have cancer," biopsy, I was confidant that my hodgkins disease would clear within 6 months after my ABVD and radiation therapy, leaving me free to go on with my life, continue my master's, becoming a more empathetic nurse practitioner, being super mom and the quintessential millenial wife. 

Five years, two transplants, three rounds of radiation, 20+ doctors and countless rounds of chemo, I woke up this morning ambivalent over whether I should stay in bed and cry over my lost health or celebrate having survived this long. 

Well, with the weather being miserable, again, and having cancer, I didn't really do either. 

I did what I do most days and what I need to do to live another 5 years: I took my meds, I rested, I talked on the phone, wrote and had company over.

X and I scheduled play dates.

We did his homework together and then went to baseball practice before we ordered his birthday cake.

Looking back at today, Half my day was spent as I think it may have been if my diagnosis had never happened, if I was healthy. 

Or looking on the bright side of things, had my diagnosis 5 years ago never happened, my priorities would not have changed.

I would have remained the same career driven alpha mom I planned to be, and though Jon still would have been coaching X's baseball practice this afternoon, who knows where I would have been?

I might have skipped it to grocery shop not realizing how important it is to watch even practices and tell the kids what a great job their doing and how they can improve.

I may have been working or too tired from working to know the other mom's to coordinate my son's social life.

Who knows where I may have been, but today, I have the choice to live with or die from cancer, and I choose to live with it.

Today, I'm celebrating the five years of life and hoping for five years more.

 You didn't really think I'd choose to pout did you?