So the big news is: I had my most recent PET/CT scan this week, and everything came back clear. No uptake, no lymphadenopathy (doc-speak for "swollen lymph nodes"), no nothing.

Well, that's not quite right. When I went to see my oncologist, he said "You've been running a lot, haven't you?" I told him I had, and reminded him I planned to do a half-marathon this September. He then asked if my right hip was sore. I told him it was, as a matter of fact: I'd run on a miserable banked concrete track just after Christmas, and my right hip had paid the piper for that transgression--two weeks later, it was still hurting.

He showed me the PET scan, pointed to the inflammation showing up on the PET and told me I'd aggravated my ilotibial band, which runs from the hip to the knee. "Common complication from running," he said. "Use some ice and ibuprofen."

So, it's nice to find something on a scan that can be treated with ice and ibuprofen, as opposed to, say, chemotherapy and radiation.

In an odd way, I find it comforting that the hip is lighting up on the PET scan; after all, if that mild inflammation is showing up, that means any serious activity on internal nodes would show up too, wouldn't it? If a sore hip tendon is the worst my scans have detected, well, that in itself makes the hip feel much better.

Whilst on the subject of the sore hip: I have to say it crimped my running for a few weeks. But this past week, I was able to get back to where I was before the injury. Four miles running uninterrupted, five miles total. I stand out like the proverbial sore thumb on the track at the YMCA: the 6-foot, 270 pound guy doing laps with several tracksters who are 6' 3" and about 150 pounds soaking wet. But in an odd way, I enjoy it; it's nice to be the guy who inspires others to spontaneously start singing "One of these things is not like the other..." from Sesame Street.

Yeah, five miles is a long way from 13 miles, but I still have eight months. I figure a couple more months of track running inside, working my way up to a six or seven mile base; after that, I'll switch to outside running, and start working in some intervals and such, doing some serious training. By September, I should be ready to go, I hope.

I might have to walk, crawl or otherwise drag my carcass across the finish line, but I'll finish.

No matter how much that hip hurts.