3/2/97
I am in count down mode! I feel so much more in control of my life now, in fact, I almost feel as though I signed the orders for my final treatment plan. I will breeze through my last eight treatments, and then I can say it only took fourteen and a half months to cleanse my Hodgkin's-filled body. I no longer feel like an outsider in the world, and I can see how I will one day talk about this as just another thing that happened to me. I can finally get back on my cloud where worries do not exist and I am queen of my future.

3/5/97
I can see that the end of all this is going to be very anti-climatic! I have heard other patients say that they expected to feel absolutely elated after their last treatment, but they didn't. I am going to try! I do know that if I squeeze through these last 5 treatments with moderately high blood counts, that I will celebrate inside my own head. Today's counts were, Platelets at 125, Hemoglobin at 10.7, and WBC's at 4,900. All great! All I have been doing to help my counts is take vitamins, do breathing exercises, get a lot of rest, and do my usual visualizing. Maybe I won't need as much recovery time as I thought!

3/6/97
I have been feeling a bit depressed, I guess because the intensity of this year is fizzling out and I don't see that I am going to finish with a bang. I have pictured nurses and doctors from all over the hospital running into the radiation unit, wearing different colored hospital clothes, dancing to the tune of some wild crescendo type of music, in celebration of my very last treatment. I think that hospital employees should be required to participate in survival celebrations just like wait people in restaurants do when they gather around and sing "Happy Birthday" to a customer. I bet it would raise blood counts, and spread a positive feeling for patients trying to get through their own long treatment plans. I am not counting on my vision to actually come true, so I have decided that there is only one way for me to complete my last treatment, and that is on roller skates. My sister ended her Breast Cancer treatments by doing cartwheels on her last day of radiation, so that gave me the idea that I could do whatever I want and that nobody will to stop me. I already warned the crew that I will be rolling into my last treatment on Thursday, and since they didn't seem against it, and even seemed inclined to want to take pictures of it, I am going to do it. It is going to be the end of a very long workout!

3/11/97
Two more to go! It is perfect timing, because I am beginning to feel tired and slightly nauseous. I am sure that my blood counts will hold out, my platelets are above 100, so I should miss the danger zone completely. I am going to win this race with all my treatments under my belt! It is pelvic radiation you know! 

Meanwhile, I have scoped out the skating path I'll take through the hospital on Thursday. I'll skate through one of the main hallways and down an escalator, then I'll skate down a long hall to the radiation unit, and then I will hop on the radiation bed and get radiated with my skates on. I have decided that skates are not that much different than wearing two small wheelchairs, and wheelchairs are perfectly acceptable in a hospital.

3/12/97
Today, I learned that for my follow up visits I have my choice of doctors, either Dr. Hoppe or Dr. Knox. I will probably choose Dr. Hoppe, just because he is the top Hodgkin's man in the world and I know I can trust him with my life. And I must not forget, I still have Dr. Cooney who saved my life in the first place. Of course I helped!

Tomorrow is the last one!

3/13/97
Today, at 2:15 PM, I rolled into the hospital and got my last treatment wearing my skates. When I got into the radiating room, there were balloons and a card on the machine from my mom and dad and few other relatives. It took me a minute to realize that something looked different, but when I did, it felt like it was my birthday. Then, after my treatment was over, I went to see Dr. Wolden and Dr. Knox who seemed amused and amazed that I was wearing skates. Dr. Knox immediately told me, "Congratulations! You have finsished all your Hodgkin's treatments!" That sounded really wierd to me, for those words put a finality to my long HD adventure. It was like a graduation where I was given a diploma in a box, and then Dr. Knox's words tied a ribbon around it. But what felt even wierder, was when Dr. Wolden said, "We'll see you in two months." It sounded so far away, and I felt as though I should check to see if I had left something in the lockers.

The whole time I was in the radiation unit, the radiation personel, especially all the nurses, gave me hugs and said good-bye. I gave them a Blort to keep in the unit, and they all wanted to know about it and about my Blort related site(s). When I left, I felt as though everyone had said good-bye to a normal healthy person, even Dr. Wolden said, "You could be the healthiest person in the room." Best of all, it did not feel like just another day!