Denver gifted me with a warm, bright day today — clear skies, 60 degrees, a hint of breeze — perfect for sitting on a sun-drenched bench and basking in the glow of another clean scan. I’m still No Evidence of Disease (NED) status. Woohoo!

You’d think I would have had enough radiation for one week, but that spring sunshine was simply irresistible after such a long winter.

I had a PET-CT scan as well as a brain MRI and lab work yesterday, and had my once-every-eight-weeks visit with my clinical trial oncologist Dr. Camidge at University of Colorado this afternoon. Today I started cycle 19 on the drug Xalkori. Each cycle is 4 weeks, so I’ve been on this drug trial for 76 weeks now, which is almost 17 months.

I’ve been NED for nearly 15 months on Xalkori. According to interim results published about this clinical trial last year, only myself and one other person achieved NED on this trial. It’s possible I don’t have many cancer cells available to mutate and develop resistance to the drug. My particular flavor of lung cancer (ROS1-driven NSCLC) hasn’t been studied very long — the first article about it was published in January 2012 — so little data exists to know what will happen in my case. Xalkori may continue to suppress my cancer for years. It’s cool to hear my doctors say they have no idea of how long I might have left, and know they’re being honest with me. I’m an outlier for those gloomy stage IV lung cancer statistics.

I feel so fortunate to be blessed with more time to enjoy family and the miracle of life. I aim to make good use of it.

Speaking of making good use of my time … should I mention I have to work on tax returns after I fly home? Nah.