"THE ‘NEW’ NEWS "
January 24, 2007
I remember very well the day I received the notice in the mail from the State of Illinois. I was awaiting the results of my State Optometry Exam. I had spent several months consumed over the miss-marked answers and dwelling over the possible mistakes. I was obsessed by the fact that I was going to have to take the darn test again. Of that, I was sure. I am a horrible test taker. I may know the information, but it never translated very well from a – e. I received the letter at the Post Office on Grand and State in Chicago. Standing in the parking lot, I read and reread the results. I looked so baffled, a postal worker offered to read the letter to me.
The letter started out, Dear Dr. Ford; we are pleased to inform you. . . . I never got past that sentence. I was so upset that a rejection letter would begin by telling me how pleased they were to inform me of this type of news. It was unbelievable. I read and reread, but couldn´t get past that sentence. That´s when the postal worker read my letter and told me that I had passed my exams. I asked him many times if he was sure, and he said that he was positive.
So confused and only two blocks away from where my father was working, I started running towards his office with my letter in hand. I ran as fast as I could go in my cowboy boots. I had an employee read the note to be sure that I wasn´t making a tragic mistake, and then we set the letter out for my father to open.
He was so excited that he miss-dialed my phone number 5 or 6 times. I stepped into the office and saw the pure joy on his face. It was then that I knew I had passed my exam.
I just received a phone call thirty minutes ago. I have the same baffled expression on my face. The same look of confusion. The results of my PET scan just came in. . . . I am Cancer Free. There was no uptake of the material into any cells in either the heart or liver. The scar tissue is there, but the cancer is gone.
I´m still stunned, trying to absorb the information, but I´m pretty convinced this is good news! I still meet with the oncologist on Wednesday. We´ll plan a new course of action from there. I don´t really know where we go from here. There is a possibility of more treatments to remove the scar tissue I don´t know but we will be discussing all of this with our oncologist and probably getting a second opinion as to follow up with a sarcoma specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York at the beginning of February.
I had forecast that I would be cancer free by June and my oncologist smiled, asking which June? Now I know. June came along in January.
My love and best wishes to all for a very happy and healthy 2007.
Love always,
Randy