Almost There: Finding Strength in the Final Stretch

Dear Friends,

With luck, this will be my last note from Seoul. We still have a couple of small mountains to climb, but treatment here will end in early September. For my friends in Ulaanbaatar, I hope to see many of you face-to-face soon. We’ll have a party!

As I write this, I think back to early June and the quandary I was facing, having just learned how sick I was. I have no illusions: without the support of all of you, this journey would not have had a beginning, let alone the possibility of a happy ending.

To bring you up to date, the daily radiotherapy continues until the end of August. I also have one final round of immuno-chemotherapy. That will be it for the intensive phase of treatment Dr. Kim Hye Ryun urgently planned for me. The progress has been all but miraculous. It would be disingenuous to say it has been fun. Still, not all the side effects have been bad: thanks to the radiotherapy, my beard trims itself!

Dr. Kim and her team’s three months of care have given my body the means to mount an effective assault on my cancer. Nearly as important, it has given me time to come up with a long-term strategy for wrestling my cancer into remission. What have I come up with?

I have established residency in British Columbia. This will permit me to take follow-on treatment in Vancouver with British Columbia health insurance coverage. That means for the coming year I will need to divide my time between Ulaanbaatar and Vancouver. I will need to slow my pace.

But what’s so tough about that? Nothing at all. But for the goodness of others, I could indeed be facing a tough year ahead. In that vein, I am very proud of MACU’s Mongolia team. They have performed heroically. A special thank you to those of you in Ulaanbaatar who, with your patronage of the fromagerie and support of our cheesemaking and other activities, have made MACU’s summer successful.

A big embrace to all of you,

Mike