“You get to keep being a dad!”

When I got home from Moffitt Cancer Center on Monday, I was on Cloud Nine. Even now, I still can’t believe I’m done with immunotherapy. I was supposed to have one more session left — which would make for a total of 13 — but my oncologist surprised me by saying 12 was enough. His primary reason had to do with the fact that immunotherapy has triggered diabetes, among other things. So, he’s hopeful that ending immunotherapy now will lessen the severity of the diabetes.

And I’m OK with that. I’m ready to have my body back to some degree. Immunotherapy has kicked my behind. I’m always tired, I often have stomach issues, my joints hurt, I have high blood pressure … and then there’s the diabetes. So, hopefully, within a month or so, I’ll start to feel better.

My doctors also told me that, as far as they’re concerned, all the cancer is out of my body. I’m in remission. Praise God! I’ll still have to go back to Moffitt for quarterly scans, etc., but I am no longer fighting cancer.

I showed my five-year-old daughter Jaylynn a video of me ringing the bell at Moffitt when I got home. She smiled so big and squeezed me in a long hug.

“You know what this means, don’t you, Dad?” she asked.

“No, what does it mean, honey?”

“You got to keep being a dad. You beat cancer!”

Amen.