Complete Response

Today was a great day, as Roanne received the best possible news in the pathology report resulting from her surgery last week. We had been hoping for "positive margins", meaning that the cancer cells in the tumour were completely encapsulated by normal tissue in what the surgeon removed, this would mean that she would not need another surgery to go in and "scoop out" more cancer cells. The pathology report went one better than this: there were no cancer cells at all detected in the tissue that was removed, meaning that she had what is termed a "complete response" to the chemotherapy and all of the cancer cells in the original tumour had been destroyed. Awesome! This has good prognostic implications, in that the probability she will have a recurrence is now significantly reduced.

We were really, really happy to get this news, and tonight we celebrated with a dinner out at the Volunteer Park Cafe (which is one of my favourite restaurants in Seattle and just happens to be half a block from our house). The restaurant is pretty small and busy (for good reason), so we ended up sharing a table with another couple who were probably about 10 years older than us, and when we got up to leave the women told us that they had really enjoyed sitting next to us, and sensed the positive energy in our interaction with each other. That was really nice to hear, I guess we were wearing the good news on our sleeves!

In other news: you may not know this, but I am actually an avid cyclist in addition to being an aspiring skier. I haven't been doing much riding in recent months since I have been focused on skiing, but I joined a cycling team/club last fall when we moved to Seattle (Hagens Berman, which is the new name for the team that I rode with when we lived here previously). Today I picked up my new kit, and had the pleasure of slipping into some fresh and tight bibs and heading out for a ride. I was so motivated by my dashing new kit that I ended up doing my first actual cycling workout of the year, some intervals at Seward Park. I hope to keep this hot streak going in coming weeks, and maybe even build some fitness and do some races before the snow starts to fly again.