shelly_rae is sleeping peacefully as I write this. I'm so glad she's here. For the first time I'm not on the pump since January. (This would have been an infusion weekend, if I'd had another round.) calendula_witch, jkoke and karawynn were here yesterday sharing a nice Salvadoran dinner from El Palenque with me and the_child. And today, JayCon X.

I'm definitely coming out the other side of chemo. Not that isn't a long, slow journey, but I can mark my progress almost daily. Last night over dinner I made a horrendously bad, quick-witted, literary dirty joke (well, pun, really). calendula_witch looked at me said, "Yep, you're back."

Some of the time, at least.

This party today is important to me. I survived. Again. A disease erupted from within my body, an inner assassin, a genetic error that has tried twice to kill me. I am still here. After leading an eremetic existence for these past months, seeing people I know and love, meeting online friends in person for the first time, and hopefully some totally new folks as well be both a practical reconnection to my social web and something of a ritual for me.

The reality is still pretty rough. Peripheral neuropathy continues to deepen. Fatigue is a constant companion. My GI still fights me more than it really should. But my mind is waking back up. And I feel a bit better every day. A bit more like myself.

We will know on the 19th if there are any further metastases established. We will know in late August if there are further colon polyps or candidate tumors. And we will never truly know if we have succeeded with this treatment, only that we continue not to fail. That's my best case. But I'm running with it. And today I celebrate.