Return of the badass

It finally happened again – we won a game! And we beat the third-ranked team, no less. Beat ’em like a rented mule, 8-3. I wound up +2 for the night and actually skated a little more like my old self through the first few shifts. Of course, that quickly caught up with me and I was dogging most of the rest of the game.

I also felt a little more of my old self by harassing their defensemen and goalie. The defenseman I always wound up against was at least a half foot taller than me and quite a few pounds. Big ol’ Grizzly Adams lumberjack lookin’ dude. He actually complained to the ref about me pushing him around in front of his own net. Turns out lumberjacks are pansies.

In other news, I’m realizing more my badass stature. One of the younger players on the team was telling me at the last game that his mom had had Hodgkin’s as well. Apparently he told her about me on the way home and she stopped me after the game to talk. She couldn’t believe I was out there playing hockey during chemo, ’cause she was pretty much flat on her back through the whole course. Couldn’t even go in to work through most of it. So she was suitably stunned that I was out there playing, plus it helped that she found out just before I played one of my better games of the season, so it seemed even more impressive.

And one of the most entertaining questions she asked me? “So, how about that itching?” She went through all of the same spiel with all brands of doctors like I did, but only for a year or so.

In other cancer news, I saw the doctor yesterday. Since today is my last treatment, we’re going to do another PET scan in early December – either the 9th or 19th, I can’t recall which at the moment. This will be two months after the last PET and one month after the last treatment. I guess that would be the 9th, then.

Anyway, once we get those results back, we’ll see how much more of cancer’s ass I’ve kicked. If there’s still a little bit, I might have to go in for some spot radiation therapy to finish off the bit in my mediastinum (center of the chest). According to my new hockeymom friend, the radiation is nothing compared to the chemo. regardless, we won’t know until after the next PET scan.

So after today (and the shot tomorrow), I get a month of freedom. As Dr. Davis said, “we’ve been hitting you pretty hard for awhile now.”

I am such a badass.