Charged up by two late-night cups of coffee, I've been sitting at my computer doing a bit of writing and working on my web site.

And just now, I've looked at the date.

May 2nd.

May 2nd was the day that started this whole crazy gig called lymphoma. It was the day I went in for a mild-mannered CT scan, and came out with a not-so-mild-mannered case of cancer.

No, May 2nd wasn't really one of the BIG milestone dates. Not the day I was officially diagnosed, or the day I started treatment, or the day ended treatment, or anything like that. But it still sticks in my head as the beginning of it all.

May 2nd. One year. Wow.

So what has a year taught me? Plenty of things, I suppose. The expected platitudes about family and friends and doing what you love being more important than ever. And I'm doing well on all those fronts; I'm working at home full-time, spending more time with my lovely daughter and lovely wife. So I like to think I made some positive changes based on the experience.

But I've also learned some practical things I never would have guessed, and here's perhaps the most important one: it gets better.

I'm saying this to you, the man who has just been diagnosed with DLBCL. Or you, the woman who's been told you have Follicular NHL. Or you, the husband/wife/son/mother/brother of someone who's been touched by cancer or some other terrifying-sounding disease.

It gets better.

As I said at the beginning of this entry, I've spent the last few hours working on my next book, checking some web sites, doing some research, sending emails...and really, the thought of cancer didn't cross my mind at all until I saw the date of "May 2nd" turn over at midnight. Cancer isn't the first thing I think about in the morning when I awake. It's not the last thing I think about when I'm trying to go to sleep. Many days, probably even most days, I don't think about cancer at all.

It may sound impossible if it's fresh in your mind right now, I know. When I was diagnosed, I knew, deep down inside, that I was destined to carry this weight on my shoulders for the rest of my life. I pictured myself as a cancerous version of Jacob Marley from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Marley laboriously struggled with the chains of greed he forged in life, while I, I was certain, would just as laboriously struggle with the chains of cancer forging my own death.

But thank God that hasn't been the case. I'm just...me. I worry about the things "normal" people (meaning, I guess, people without cancer) worry about. My family, my work, my finances, my odd, obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Sure, I think about cancer, but it's not the terrifying, adrenaline-pumping adversary it once was. It's just something I have to live with. Emphasis on "live."

Make no mistake, I realize it's easy for me to feel this way because I've officially been in remission since the first of the year. If my most recent scans and blood tests weren't clear, I certainly wouldn't be so "Gee, ain't life grand?" about the whole thing.

But again, for those of you struggling after diagnosis, I want you to know that part of the reason you're so scared of this thing right now (I have many friends who call it "The Beast," and I guess that's as good a term as any) is precisely because you have these warped visions of what life with cancer is like. We all do. We see how it's portrayed on television, in magazine articles, movies, and such. The cancer "victim" is almost always heroic and valiant in the battle, but the end is always the same: the "victim" dies, right?

But I'm guessing you've probably heard that old saw about real life being nothing like the movies. People live with cancer all the time. Thousands of us. For decades. And we die of other less-terrifying things such as slips in the bathroom and old age.

I plan to be one of those people. Someday, my cancer may be back. I hope it's later rather than sooner, but that's okay. I've lived with it before. I can live with it again.