Conclusion & Resolution

It has been weeks since my last intensive chemotherapy and well over six months since there was a cancer cell in my body. I began Maintenance this past Tuesday, - and even though I am on steroids and chemo still, but in lower and non-intensive doses - I feel good. My hair is growing back, slowly but surely, and I continue to push my body in order to regain strength and endurance. I am on the road to recovery and there is no looking back.

I end this blog, quite appropriately, on the final day of 2009 and the final day of this decade. Over the horizon there is incredible potential as I hold the rest of my youth, and lifetime, ahead of me. I have beat cancer once... at nearly 21 years old, that is more than anyone should ever have to say. Hell - at any age, that is too much to say. There is still a lot of work to be done. I may have survived but the fight to eradicate life-threatening diseases across this world still remains. People are suffering every waking moment for often unimaginable or incomprehensible reasons. It is wrong, and together we can change this. Please continue to make an impact in any way you can: donating blood and platelets, volunteering at health clinics, running in marathons, raising money for cures, lobbying our lawmakers for research funding, etc.

Yes, tomorrow is the start of a new year and a new decade, but there is nothing new that I will wake up with tomorrow... I carry with me - as I have this entire year - the tremendous love of my family, the great support of my friends, the intelligence and skill of my doctors and nurses, and my fighting attitude.

"I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul ..."