I popped my last, minimal (2.5mg) dose of Prednisone this morning. I’m ready to restore some order, to stop being sleepy, stop medicating my headaches with high doses of sugar, and get back to eating my long-lost vegetables. The only vestige of my November ordeal is I haven’t taken up caffeine again, and I’m not planning to. It will make fasting (before scans or on Yom Kippur) much easier. I do still drink coffee. I have begun my quest for affordable and good-tasting decaf beans.

I sensed a strong undercurrent in that WSJ article about cancer super-survivors is their uniformly positive attitude. The interviews showed people who seem unafraid. I feel pretty much the same. I was telling a friend the other day that maybe part of this is, I’ve never been much of a long-range planner. It never occurred to me before that this could be a positive. I’m focused on January 5 and trying to visualize as much tumor destruction as possible happening inside my lungs until that day.

I’m not focused on things like, “OK, immunotherapy may give me another ten years.” Because… in what universe would that be even remotely long enough?