Go Tigers! Beat KU!
As I sat down to write this update, Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind shuffled onto my playlist. Serendipity. That song has always carried a grounded strength for me, a reminder that the place you’re heading isn’t always about spectacle, but about finding a rhythm, a purpose, a mindset steady enough to carry you through what’s next.
This week reminded me of the tension I live in. A cardio-oncologist studied my scans and told me my heart is strong, steady, and healthy. Those words landed harder than I expected. So much of my medical life right now is measured by what’s failing or fragile. To hear that one part of me still holds strong, it felt like a gift. But chemo has its way of humbling me. One night I managed a slow mile on my feet, the next day I was on the floor when my left knee gave out. That’s the fight: the will to push forward colliding with the body that says “not today.”
Next week, my New York chapter begins at Memorial Sloan Kettering. A few more appointments will follow, here and back in the city, before the move becomes more permanent. But this feels like the first note of a new verse, the place where the fight turns toward its final stretch. I know it won’t be easy, but like the song says, I’m ready to leave behind the fast lane for something slower, more deliberate, more real.
I’ll trade the familiar comforts of home for a small place on the East Side of Manhattan. Nothing extravagant, just the essentials. From that quiet corner, I’ll walk the blocks to the hospital, a path that will soon feel as natural as breathing. Treatments will come, the weeks will pass, and each one will bring me closer to closing this chapter.
It will be a different kind of life, pared down, simple, lived in the present. Forward motion itself will be the promise. I’m a realist: relapse is a possibility, blood cancers are unpredictable. But fear won’t be my soundtrack. I’ll live cleaner, fuller, more intentionally. Every breath, every moment, a gift I will not squander.
Because in the end, it isn’t Manhattan I’m really walking toward. It’s Maria’s smile. It’s the laughter of my boys. It’s the voices of friends rising with the smoke of a campfire, the warmth of Irish whiskey in the glass, the fullness of life waiting when this season is done.
Steady. Grateful. Alive.
Glad to see your getting the treatment you need and want in NYC Chris.
There's no surprise that your heart is strong....you've got a spine of steel to support it. You started strong in this marathon, and this is a other bend in the road that will take you closer to the finish line. When that bottle runs out, I know where I can get more....maybe some day we can raise a glass to your health there!