Today was my regular oncology appointment. All good here and NED (No Evidence of Disease) is still my friend!

June 1 will be 12 years. Today I had a graduation of sorts, my oncologist released me for annual appointments versus every six months. I truly love my oncologist I think he’s awesome. His name is Dr. Lee P Hartner and he is at Penn Medicine if you’re interested. Dr. Hartner has been a slow and steady constant and rock throughout this whole process. And he has amazing nurses. How I ended up with him is he was the oncologist my surgeon, Dr. Dahlia Sataloff suggested.

But as I left his office today, it was a weird feeling that I had graduated to yet another level of remission recovery whatever you want to call it. I had a quick teary moment, all by myself in my car in the garage. I know and I’ve said this before that I am one of the lucky ones. God willing, and the creek don’t rise, it will remain that way.

But cancer is a weird thing. Which is why I encourage people to get genetic testing when they are able if they have a history of cancer in their family. My own husband did genetic testing recently because his mother had breast cancer. He tested positive for the BRCA gene. He’s completely healthy, but he will have to be mindful as he ages. When men test positive for the breast cancer genes, it means that they do get male mammograms, and they have to stay on top of things like prostate exams.

It’s kind of weird realizing that your husband’s possibly going to be getting mammograms too, but we don’t talk about male breast cancer often, and it does happen. So ladies, if the men in your lives have a history of breast, and other cancers in their families, encourage them to have genetic tests done. It does not mean you will ever get cancer, but it means there is a genetic marker for it, and you might as well pay attention to that an act accordingly.

And today is also my friend Alene’s birthday. She is an oncology nurse among other things, and we’ve known each other since seventh grade. So I think that was another reason that today was a good day for me at my oncology visit.

Thanks for stopping by.