2024 🚶‍♂️‍➡️ 2025

Cancer Update (Week 12/23-12/31)

Happy new year, Ma’s Basement family! 2025 is going to be our year. I’m only slightly superstitious; last year I ate my 12 new year’s grapes and had the worst year of my life, so this year I’ve banned grapes altogether.

Even more important than starting 2025, my last chemo treatment is today! Yeaaaahhhhhhhhhh! By the time you’re reading this, I will have made it through six cycles of aggressive chemotherapy. Speaking of being superstitious, I’m not sure how I feel about celebrating or announcing it to people outside of the Ma’s Basement Mafia until I get my final PET scan results and blood tests back, but I will be ringing that bell in the morning. Five months of treatment has been the most difficult journey I’ve ever gone through, so you better believe I’m turning that treatment center into the Selling Sunset Oppenheim Group office.

This weekend was also my 27th birthday. It’s hard for everything right now to not be overshadowed by cancer. In my mind, this was my cancer birthday, in my cancer year, right after my cancer Christmas. I’m sure in a few years it’ll seem so distant, but it makes things feel very simple now. I don’t want any big plans or celebrations or have any real wishes or resolutions, I just want to be healthy again. Regardless, I had a nice day filled with Sweetgreen crispy rice bowls and Babygirl and nigiri. Arguably the main Matt K dogma is that if it can be celebrated, it should be, and between my birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years, there’s been a whole lot of celebrating lately. It’s part of why I think these 21 days since last treatment have gone so slow, in a good way. Instead of just spending hours and hours in bed, I’ve actually been making use of my days, which has made this seem like the most normal and eventful few weeks of the past five months. I’m hoping I won’t feel too bad after this last treatment, I’ll be able to stay busy, and January will feel just as fulfilling.

As if this week wasn’t eventful enough, I also started physical therapy. I’m both stronger (already lifting weights) and weaker (every single thing exhausts me) than I expected to be. My program is pretty intense, or at least seems that way now, and is three sessions a week for eight weeks. For now, my personal goal is to be able to do any type of cardio without feeling like I’m going to pass out. I’m sure I’ll start from square one after this week’s treatment, but after three sessions, I’m already feeling a bit stronger. I’ll be back paying my Equinox membership fees and stepping foot in that eucalyptus steam room in no time, I’m sure of that.

After my last cycle of chemo, the next steps are blood tests in two weeks and a new PET scan in a month and a half. If these come back clear, I’ll officially be in remission. Until then……..I guess I wait. I’m not sure whether it’s better to be optimistic or have no expectations at all, but I’ll start stressing myself out when the time comes. Right now, I’m in a good mood. My year of health and recovery starts NOW.

Feel good song of the week: