putting a cap on chemo 🥳

putting a cap on chemo 🥳

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 12, 2025

Very excited to announce that this week is my final treatment week, and that I have finished my last infusion for this round of chemo!

Woo! Got through the worst of it.

Some might even say I got through it in style thanks to you all 🎩.

This journey began three months ago with an unfortunate late night call from my oncologist, and has since involved the coordination of oncology teams in two different states, a cross-country move, 21 chemo infusions, and over 40 hats sent from all around the world.

Next on the agenda - a celebratory month of naps 😴

Now that chemo is done, the next phase of care is all about rest, and letting my body do the work of re-establishing normal function. 

The expectation is that over the next 4-8 weeks my blood counts should come back to normal, and that the lingering side effects of chemo will resolve themselves over the course of the next few months (fingers crossed). 

I have received widely varying estimates from my doctors for when I will start to feel truly normal again (ranging from from a few months to a year) and my takeaway is that recovery looks different for everyone. I’ll just have to be patient, wait, and take things as they come.

The next milestone will be a set of CT images in December that will inform what next steps could look like, if any. Hopefully the images show that the cancer has melted away, and I get the thumbs up from my doc that no more treatment is imminent (fingers crossed again).

ABOVE:  with winter temps now arriving in WI, I'm getting lots of use of winter caps

The big question I keep getting though is - what will I do with all the hats?

And the answer is - wear them!

My hair will likely not fully grow back for about 4-6 months, and so I’ll continue to have a need for hats for quite some time yet.  (Especially as winter arrives in Wisconsin. The windchill is making it feel like its 13 degrees Fahrenheit outside as I am writing this - yikes! Definitely winter hat weather.)

Stay tuned for more hat updates as recovery continues, and take a nap today to celebrate!

💜 matt