Monday was my last day of active treatment. As of now, I'm a cancer survivor in the official textbook sense.
It was a bit anticlimactic, just like the end of chemo. It won't really feel like an ending until I'm over the most serious side effects. I'm still deeply fatigued. Worse, I have massive deep burns on my side, and a complicated routine of bandaging the burns twice a day (luckily I don't have any nerves in the burned spots, so I'm not feeling much pain). These things should sort themselves out in a week or two.
Tonight I went to a hacker space and built my first circuit for an ultra-secret wedding project. I soldered for the first time. My first few soldering attempts were pretty hilarious, but after a while I got the hang of it, thanks to a super-patient friend. Building stuff, eating snacks, making bad puns, and learning some new things - I felt like myself again, and I forgot about cancer all night.
It was hard to keep learning things during treatment. I felt like pulling away from the world. Everything was so intense, in every possible way. Now I'm very tentatively reaching out again.
