It is in my nature to romanticize firsts. Mondays and New Year’s, new months and new moons, a crisp new notebook, a blinking cursor on a blank page, a new move to a new neighborhood in a new place where a new me can explore new things.

The only dopamine hit I get from lasts is condiment-related, specifically a deep satisfaction of scraping out the last bit of mayo or splatter of ketchup. Otherwise, lasts are for the birds, something to rush through. Speed reading the end of a book, staying up late to watch the last episode, short-timers, zoning out, counting down, hurrying up until it’s over to begin again. Free of sentimentality, the past cannot trap me in tradition. Free of tradition, I’m free of obligation and of disappointment from expectation. Was that donut really as good as I remember? How about that family Christmas? The past is a highlight reel curated by my unreliable memory. Living there feels a tinge like hopelessness. I cannot return and, even if I could, I’m not returning as the same person. The present, the future, this is the birthplace of my power, the promise for better. Firsts are freedom to create, hope for better, a promise that I will LIVE!, new rockets of desire will be born, and I’ll ride the melt.

As I write this I’m on day 3 of cycle 6, which is expected to be my final cycle of chemotherapy. All the ways progress is measured in this disease - clear CNS tests, reduced abdominal pain, no physical lymph node swelling - is showing treatment is working. In 3 weeks I’ll have a PET scan which will confirm that yes, I’m in remission or no, something more is needed. The pre-hospital meeting with the oncologist was different this week as we talked about what comes on the other side of living in 21-day cycles. Is the PET scan the best way to check for disease? Yes. Does this mean that treatment is over? It’s complicated. There will be options for ongoing treatment to discuss after the scan. How often will I get scans? Every three months for the next two years we’ll meet to check symptoms. Every six months after that until year 5 when it goes to once per year. Scans take a toll on the body, so we’ll only do them if I have concerning symptoms. If the PET scan is clear, does that mean I’m in remission? Yes. A day 22 is happening.

Remission is not a cure. Remission means that the signs and symptoms of cancer are reduced. Cure means that there are no traces of cancer after treatment and cancer will never come back. For my paticular flavor of lymphoma, this highest rate of relapse is in the first 5 years, so the new Big C, cure, will not be used until then.

The view from my hospital bed. I’ve hung a collage of photos from the life before cancer. In them I’m hugging trees, laughing with friends, playing outdoors, hosting parties with my beloved tribe of girlfriends, eating my famous toasted brown butter fat-bottomed Rice Krispie treats at 7000 feet, staring into the eyes of my 4 cats and, in one of my favs, the eyes of my husband as he happily presents the camera a half-eaten huckleberry bear claw taken in our parked car with heavy rain outside the window.

That pastry picture floods me with memories, and not just because as an armchair pastry connoisseur I was unexpectedly delighted to find a stellar pastry in the boondocks (8.5/10 in the bear claw category). By boondocks I mean it. To reach this divine dough, we left Glacier National Park after a day of running and hiking epic trails to travel 15 miles north on a rutty single-track dirt road until almost crossing the Canadian border until we reached the famous town of Polebridge. Less town and more a series of out-buildings centered around a bakery and mercantile. Dusty wooden floors with two large rooms, the mercantile is over 100 years old serving up practical items like gauze and bug spray or souvenirs like custom cribbage boards and novelty t-shirts. The creme de la creme is the baked good wall where we waited in line to load up on seasonal huckleberry treats. The plan was to eat our lunch on one of the picnic tables placed in overgrown fields overlooking Montana’s rocky mountains, but as we clomped down the old wooden mercantile front steps the sky opened up with a deluge of rain. Covering our precious haul, we ran to the car giggling at other less nimble tourists escaping the rain. This whole experience - the smells of the wet dirt and hot wood, the joyful yips of children running from rain, the sweet pain in the rear of my jaw as my taste buds exploded on bite one of the bear claw - the sense memories return thanks to this single snap of Evan’s cheeky smile. Maybe there is something to this whole nostalgia thing.

That moment in the car is one of those when-I-die-this-is-what-I’ll-flash-back-to moments. I suppose all of these pictures hold that power and I suppose that’s why I hang them in front of my bed - to remind me of all the things I love, or once loved. It’s with loving intentions so many who join me in these pictures reach out to remind me that I will get back to these places again. They remind me that very soon I’ll be running trails, climbing mountains, crewing ultras, hugging trees, and traveling sketchy dirt roads on a pilgrimage to find the perfect buttery crust. These past few days, nurses on 3 West gather in my room, checking my chart to estimate when I’ll get out of the hospital so they can be there when I ring the bell, a right of passage for cancer patients marking the end of their treatment. My world of friends, caregivers, calendars all marked up rushing to get to the last - the last time I’ll get treatment, the last blood draw, the last infusion, the last PET scan marking the first days of a new life. Ring the bell, a new life begins.

A new life.

How much of me from these photos will return? Is that even what I want? My body is ravaged by chemo, my abdomen sliced from emergency life-saving surgery, the 2000 miles between my family and me feels too far away, the idea of being apart from Evan is panic-attack inducing. Twenty pounds lost mostly in my ass which now looks like I stuck two 2x4’s down the back of my pants. Muscles atrophied, easily exhausted and confused. Bald as a little baby with the peach fuzz to match.

I find myself feeling both suspicious and superstitious about the bell. There is no delusion that ringing means I’m done by any definition of the word. If I ring it I do so knowing it will mean something different to everyone. That is no different than any choice I make, the witness’s interpretation is more a reflection of them than of me. Ringing it will be another photo-worthy moment in an infinity of firsts. Nothing about this experience feels like it will end, the mark is indelible. Surges of grief and love endlessly transforming into something new. Being in remission doesn’t mean the valve of fear shuts off nor is that fear a single note of “bad” any more than the lack of it, then the remission or cure itself is “good”.

This past week we had a scary pathology report show up in MyChart that read like the fluid tested from my lumbar chemo may have malignant cells. This would mean the c-bag made its way into my central nervous system which would fall into the worst-case, you’re doomed category of news. We made some calls and we waited. For 2 long hours Evan, mom, and I held each other and cried, 10,000-yard stares all around. After 20 or so minutes the gut-wrenching subsided and I wandered outside to sit on our newly finished deck. The sun on my face, I laid back my head to watch the clouds moving in the sky, how the whispy tail ends of one reached out to connect with another. Darryl and Carol, our backyard love doves, called to one another in the tree above my head and I moved spots to avoid being shit on. At that moment everything I ruminate on - what I want, who I want, and where - became crystal clear. This may be as good as it gets, this moment in the sun. I’m going to be okay, even if I die, I’m going to be okay. Moments later the phone rang. The scans were clear and we exhaled grief, we exhaled love.

There will be a time two months or ten years in the future that I will get a stomach ache (see: pastries, Rice Krispie treats) and I will fear the cancer is back. That fear may even be proven true. This is my life now. The uncertainly that surely with my bright energy and kale-centric breakfasts, I will live to a ripe old age is no longer so certain, and I suppose now I’m just awake to the fact that time here was never guaranteed. None of us are getting out of this life alive, as the morbid dad joke reminds us.

Just as ringing the bell isn’t me acknowledging I’m done, my ability to return to what I once was is not a sign of my recovery or my lust for life. Just as before, all I see are new beginnings, new challenges. To travel. To seek out beautiful people, places, and things. To examine the life I want, what, where, and with who. To navigate remission, to live knowing this happened, that it could return. To not sort each of those into a category of “good” and “bad”, “living” or “failing”, “lasts” or “firsts”. I can never get it wrong, I will never get it done. There is no destination. I could never possibly eat all the pastries I want to eat not to mention the taste buds I’ve lost may never return this armchair critic back to the woman she once was. I’m okay with that. I’m excited to meet this new woman and to see what new things set her on fire, for however long she/I burns. However long, it’s enough.

Yoga on the deck with mom. Another sense memory and no, we did not get shat on but we did almost shat ourselves thanks to a birthday cake/seated twist combo.

The “last” treatment.

Thee week of waiting.

Punished.