Three Years Cancer Free

A few days ago I received a large chocolate 'C' and a "Happy Birthday Chris 2.0" card in the mail from my mom, serving as a reminder that it has now been three years since my stem cell transplant.

Oops... I guess that means I forgot to go to my oncologist appointment last week.

Life has been crazily busy, to say the least.

So busy, in fact, that I am going to give you the highlights, with a few photos, and then call it a night:

Our family is doing well. Madeline is now two-and-a-half years old, and Emma is 11 months old. Madeline talks non-stop and is currently taking ballet lessons. Emma's favourite activity is terrorizing her older sister Madeline!

Photo by Marlboro Wang - marlborowangphoto.com

We bought our first house, and moved into it two weeks ago today. Most of our stuff has been unpacked, the Christmas lights are up, and both our families are coming for Christmas dinner. This place is a dream come true!

I've had a very busy year with work. I'm in my third year teaching music at the same elementary school, and my DJ business is booming. After this coming weekend, I will have done 55 DJ gigs this year, with only three weekends off between May 6th and now. Yowza! My music teaching position is increasing in January so I will probably start to scale back the DJ work a bit during the non-summer months.

Photo by Kaylyn Van Driesum - www.kvdphotographs.com

I asked Kaitlin if I was missing anything on here and she said "Yes. Tell them how you're still sick all the f*cking time."

You want me to write about being sick on a cancer blog???

Surely you jest!

Unfortunately, she is correct. 

I am chronically sick. 

Colds... sinus infections... influenza... hand-foot-and-mouth disease... rotavirus... it never ends. 

I know that these are the consequences of subjecting my post-stem-cell-transplant immune system to the germ pool known as the "elementary school music classroom" (I teach somewhere around 230 kids, multiple times per week) but it's frustrating that there isn't much I can do about it.

Oh well. C'est la vie, right? At least I'm alive.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and a very Merry Christmas! 

And if you're currently dealing with cancer, please don't hesitate to get in touch if you need someone to talk to.

Thanks for reading,

Christopher