Readers of this blog know that the past week brought with two pieces of excellent news: My CA-19/9 blood marker dropped to 32 (no active cancer) and I successfully completed my final round of chemotherapy. Following the exuberant and joyful “Happy Dance” performed by the amazing Four Winds Oncology Team, I emerged from a known place where my illness was center stage and the fight against it was “game on” into a new life that – as Monica put it – can “be a little scary.”

How could that be? How is it that undergoing six months of aggressive cancer treatments and then being pronounced “cancer free” can be “a little scary?” I mean, I got the good numbers, chemo wife! But Monica explained to me that part of the scariness is because a known routine – our twelve rounds in the Room of Orange Chairs – is behind us; and part of it is that as a result of it being behind us we are no longer in the regular care of those we have come to trust with our lives. “Some people feel a little depressed,” she said.

One of the more curious aspects of being “in remission” occurred to me when I was working on my book, Final Draft. Back in September when I started writing what I still envision to be an adventure story about a boy who followed a white rabbit down a hole and who then grew up to be a curious fellow indeed, I knew I needed something to preface that old rabbit story. I needed something that combined my lifelong interest in reading and in crafting narratives with a final “summing up,” by which I mean some useful conclusions about what those narratives and living by the logic of them have meant in my life and what I have learned along the way.

The truth is that I had hoped – we all had hoped and prayed – for a longer remission. But pancreatic cancer of the sort that is fond of my cells, a deadly cancer that turns otherwise perfectly ordinary, hard-working, and righteous proteins into mutant ninja cells, has a history of finding a way, even after a remission, to cause more trouble. So it is with undeniable sadness that I report that I am no longer in remission, no longer “cancer free.” The damned little mutant ninjas running amok in my vascular system are back, which is an empirical fact. My CA-19/9 marker is at 670 this week, after registering 500 the week before.

That’s not good.

That said, Dr. Robin also gave us some very good news. The tumor/scar tissue on my pancreas and lesions/scar tissue on my liver are stable, which means that whatever the mutant cells are doing is still at a formative stage and – here’s more good news – may be reduced by a timely return to what she calls “lightweight maintenance chemo.”

So beginning next week I reenter the Room of Orange Chairs.

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