The Importance Of Being Vin Diesel

First, let me say, Happy New Year! We have embraced 2010 officially. We said our farewells--to both the bad and the good--to 2009 the other night and here we are at the entrance of 2010, eager to walk through the door and see where it takes us.

As it turns out, our first order of business for 2010 will be Scan Week. This could not come at a better time. I say this for two reasons: First, we start off the year knowing almost immediately where we stand. Clean scans and we have three more months of anxiety-reduced living. Second, Andrew has been suffering of late from assorted ... issues--tiredness, diarrhea, leg pain--in short, many of the things that give us flashbacks to his initial diagnosis. Don't get me wrong, I am remaining relatively calm, in that much of this is probably attributable to the holidays and the fact that he has been too excited to sleep while also eating sweets and treats in large quantities. Still, Scan Week cannot come quickly enough ... I need my fears officially put to rest until April. This is how we live. This is the framework of our lives now. We know it's probably nothing, but the gnawing fear in the back of our minds never fully subsides.

To paraphrase the late, great Vin Diesel (What's that? He's not dead...?!): We live life a quarter at a time. Clean scans next week (touch wood) and we will then look forward to Andrew's birthday in February and perhaps a ski trip in March. That's about as far ahead as we can permit ourselves to look and plan. I'm sure that eventually, we will allow ourselves to stretch out a bit, but that is a year or so of clean living away. In the meantime, these are the mile markers that dictate our lives. Please send your thoughts and prayers for another three months of NED status. Thank you.

Paul