Four years ago, I launched this blog. I didn’t know where I was going with it, and I didn’t know much except that my life was in grave danger, a near or distant future not assured to me, I was too sick to eat, and I wasn’t in the mood to pray.

But I could write. I have always been able to write. I had no idea of the conditions under which I could write, and I feel as though I discovered them all: I wrote through near-starvation due to colitis brought on by immunotherapy, I wrote through elation at getting better, I wrote through fears of not continuing the treatment that almost killed me, and I wrote through the bewilderment of those two days in April 2015, when I went from my oncologist reporting “No Evidence of Disease” in my lungs, to having nine tumors in my brain, all within the space of twenty-four hours. My entire life since that point has been an attempt to either recapture or recover from the sheer adrenaline rush of those days. From time to time I’ll look up one of those posts and laugh (and cringe).

Steroids fueled a lot of my writing during illness. I have kept the vials of leftovers around, but I’m not crazy enough to use them recreationally, as a means of kicking my writing into high gear. The nonstop writing was the only positive part of steroid insanity. All the rest, the extreme irritability, the sleeplessness, the fact that only fried foods tasted right, the way my face ballooned to the size of a small planet — I don’t wish any of that back.

Four years ago I didn’t know I’d be sitting in a house I owned, a mile away from the house where I grew up, or that I’d be voting in the building that housed my elementary school, and my children would be sleeping in separate rooms at last. I didn’t know we’d have deer occasionally show up on the front lawn, and we’d drop everything to watch them. Four years ago (even one year ago), my father was still here. He was cheering me on. You can find his comments sprinkled liberally through the early posts here, full of praise and encouragement in all caps.

“I am surprised to see / that the ocean is still going on,” writes Anne Sexton in the opening to her marvelous poem, “Letter Written on a While Crossing Long Island Sound.” I haven’t written about that poem here (yet?) but you can hear her read it. (I just listened to it again and held my breath the whole time.) The last two lines are everything.

I am surprised to see I am still here, writing on and on even without the aid of steroids, and even more surprised to find you reading this blog. Thanks. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I still am.