ABSTRACT
I now had a "medical vacation." After running to doctors, tests, and x-rays for more than a year, I had, for the first time since the discovery of the lump, four months without any medical appointments. My life was beginning to return to its normal, well-scheduled, disciplined pace. Perhaps it was time to resume all that had been interrupted by the cancer. Perhaps I should call the travel agent and find an excursion to a warm climate or maybe return to the original plan of visiting the Caribbean. I did have some good friends there, people I had met through my activities in different conferences and professional meetings. Or I could go to visit my relatives and try to get some conversation, some dialogue going with them. The beauty of it all was that I could do any of those things, that my life, now free of threatening death, was mine again, and I could use it, live it, enjoy it, celebrate it.
