This post is part of my Cancer & Healing journal, an archive of the updates I wrote while going through treatment for Stage III rectal cancer. These entries reflect what I knew and felt at the time.

I did it.

Chemoradiation is officially checked off the list.

Wild plot twist, though. I started treatment on the first day of the government shutdown, and I wrapped it up today, the exact same day the bill passed to reopen things.

So basically, you’re all welcome.

Apparently my treatment schedule was synced up with Congress like some kind of cosmic group project.

Forty three days of shutdown.

Forty three days of me getting zapped and pumped full of 5 FU.

I finish, and the government suddenly remembers how to function again.

Coincidence? Probably.

But it is way funnier to pretend I fixed the whole country by showing up to treatment every day.

Healing era unlocked. Let’s go.

Looking Back

There was something incredibly satisfying about finally being able to say, I finished it.

For six weeks and two days, treatment had dictated the rhythm of my life. Radiation appointments. A chemotherapy pump attached to my body. Fatigue. Nausea. Food becoming increasingly unappealing. A very unhappy backside. And a whole lot of showing up whether I felt like it or not.

November 12 was the first major finish line.

But one thing I didn’t fully appreciate yet was that finishing radiation doesn’t mean your body is finished with radiation.

The effects continue after that final treatment, and healing takes time. I had a few weeks ahead of me to recover before beginning the next part of my treatment, systemic chemotherapy.

So this wasn’t the end of cancer treatment.

Not even close.

But I had learned something important by then.

You don’t have to finish the whole mountain before you’re allowed to celebrate how far you’ve climbed.

Chemoradiation was done.

That was enough for November 12.

And apparently I reopened the federal government too.

You’re welcome.

For someone finishing chemoradiation

If you’re approaching your own final radiation treatment, celebrate it.

Ring the bell if that’s your thing. Don’t ring it if it isn’t. Cry. Laugh. Go home and sleep. Eat something good if your digestive system is still speaking to you.

There may still be treatment ahead. Your body may need time to catch up with what you’ve just put it through. Your experience may look completely different from mine.

But finishing one part of cancer treatment matters.

You don’t have to wait until the entire story is over to acknowledge that you did something hard.