A day for celebration!!

Hello everyone,

2 reasons for celebration tonight...

1. Our team raised over $3,500 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk, putting us among the top 10 teams fundraising teams!!! I have received several additional donations in the mail (which I can still submit), so this number continues to climb. Approximately 50 friends and family contributed to the grand total, which absolutely blew me away. I had set my original goal at $500. I continue to be overwhelmed by the outpouring of generosity and support that I have received in my journey toward healing. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. I wish you all could have been there to share in the magic of the event with me. It was amazing!

16 of us were there representing Lauren's NHL All-Stars: my parents, Dan, my best friend Chiya, both my grandmothers and George, Aunt Kelly and Uncle Dan and the girls, Aunt Pat and Uncle Will, Kate and cousin Dan...and me, of course :) We carried a banner displaying our team name, and balloons with tiny lights in them that lit up the night sky. There was a ton of food, games, and the largest crowd ever: over 3,500 walkers. That must be the magic number. I had a white "survivor" balloon and a survivor t-shirt as well. I'm not sure that I can technically call myself cured yet, but I feel I'm fighting a winning battle.

The most moving part of the night for me was seeing my face on the wall of heroes beside pictures of both of my grandfathers who passed away after battles with NHL and other cancers. I know they were marching beside me in spirit and cheering me on toward the finish line.

This brings me to my second reason for celebration...

I'M FINISHED WITH CHEMO!!!!!!

Today I completed my final cycle of CHOP treatment. It was a short visit, and it was hard to believe that it will be my last (hopefully forever!). Everyone was congratulating me and telling me how healthy I look. It was such a joyful experience. I can remember how 6 months of chemo looked like an eternity to me when I first began this process, but now here I am, and it feels like it all went by so quickly. I am told that years from now, I will look back, and this will all just seem like a bad dream. But as I have said in the past, it has been just as much a blessing as a curse.

It felt almost bittersweet when I walked out of the Helen Graham Cancer Center today. The people there have become my friends, and have literally held my hand through some of the most trying moments of my life. I really am going to miss seeing them, and miss their warmth and their nurturing. I hugged all of the nurses goodbye today. They made this experience bearable. They made me laugh. I am so grateful to have met them, and they have taught me so much about giving to others. If law school proves to be the wrong choice, I think nursing seems like a very rewarding profession: a career where you go home every day knowing you've really made a difference. I hope they know what a difference they made to me. They saved my life.

My #1 hero, of course, is Dr. Guarino. He has been phenomenal. Truly phenomenal. Words cannot even express how grateful I am to him for his guidance, his knowledge, his humor, and his care. Today his nurse was telling me that he is consistently the last doctor to finish rotations at the end of the night. He never turns anyone away. I am blessed to have my life in the hands of someone so brilliant and compassionate.

So what happens now? Now I wait and see. I go back in 3 weeks for scans to check my status after this final round, and if all is clear, I'll go back every 2 months or so for check-ups. If I relapse, then we move right to a new chemo cocktail and stem cell transplant. But as Dr. G says, that's a bridge we'll cross when we come to it, and we're not going to come to it.

I guess this means I can start getting back to "normal" life . . . although I guess this is normal life: dealing with the curveballs that you're thrown, and making the most of each day. All the same, I can't wait to have my hair back, and get back in shape, and not be always thinking about where I am in my chemo cycle, and how low my white blood cell counts are, and what pills to take. I think I am going to be paranoid about relapsing for a long time though. I had a cold a few weeks ago, and I was so nervous that the cough was not going to go away, like the persistent cough that I had before my diagnosis. But it went away :)

Some sad news, however...I recently learned that this crazy cancer journey has just begun for someone that I love dearly: Mrs. Mahler, Dan's mom. Mrs. Mahler was diagnosed with breast cancer just this past week. Luckily, they seem to have caught it early. Please please please keep her in your thoughts and prayers!!! And pray for the Mahler family and Dan too. I can only imagine how frustrating and upsetting it must be to watch two of the leading ladies in your life deal with this disease. It is truly relentless, but I have found that love and support are the best medicine. So please send all your love and support their way!

I will continue to update this journal, even though my treatment is over. The healing process is beginning, and I want to keep you all posted on my progress. I was excited to discover that some of my hair has already started to grow back! I have a healthy coating of peach fuzz on my head now, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be as red as it ever was. It's nice to see new life and regeneration after all of this :)

A million thank-yous and God bless you, truly, for being my sources of strength and for every prayer and every word of support. I know that all you have given will come back to you ten fold, and that you are my heroes.

Tons of love to everyone,
Lauren