It’s hard to believe, but I’m coming up on my 12th anniversary of being diagnosed with CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia). My most recent lab work showed my cancer as undetected—which is always good news… with an asterisk. In my case, “undetected” can be a little sneaky. It can be undetected on one visit and pop back out of range on the next. I wish I could tell you why there’s such a swing, but I don’t do anything differently from month to month. Same diet. Same routine. Same bad jokes. The only thing that really changes is what the numbers decide to do.

I will never forget the day I found out. Or the days leading up to it.

I had gone in for a routine six-month checkup when my GP called and asked me to come back in for more lab work because something looked “off.” Then on February 14, 2014—Valentine’s Day—my wife and I were getting ready to meet one of my daughter’s newest boyfriends. He was coming to pick her up for a high school date, and I was in the important stage of fatherhood known as trying to find the right words to mildly terrify a teenage boy.

That’s when my phone rang.

Keep in mind, this was late on a Friday afternoon, when most doctors’ offices are already mentally in their cars. The nurse told me my white blood cell count was extremely high and that they wanted me to see an oncologist.

At that moment, I had never heard the word “oncologist.” I didn’t know what kind of doctor that was.

During the phone call, my wife quietly looked it up and said, “Tim… that’s a cancer doctor.”

Needless to say, my carefully rehearsed intimidation speech for my daughter’s boyfriend completely left the building.

My appointment was scheduled for the following Tuesday at 10 a.m., which made that weekend the longest weekend of my life. A thousand scenarios ran through my head. I didn’t sleep much. I just wanted Tuesday to get there so I could talk to someone who actually knew what was going on.

Tuesday morning arrived with snow and ice. I kept calling the office. No answer. The hospital sat on top of a steep hill, and the road was iced over. No one was going up it, including me.

Later that day, the temperatures rose, someone finally answered, and my appointment was moved to 2 p.m.

I’ll never forget meeting my oncologist. He made a lasting impression. My wife decided that day she didn’t like him from the start.

I had a thousand questions loaded and ready. I opened my mouth to ask the first one. He held up a finger and said, “I’m talking. When I’m done, I’ll answer your questions.”

And just like that, I realized I was not in charge anymore.

He’s an older doctor, and sometimes I worry that one day I’ll walk in and find out he’s retiring. I’ve been with him nearly the whole time—nearly because there was one stretch when he tried to pawn me off on another doctor at another hospital because my numbers wouldn’t behave. But that’s a story for another time.

The time after my diagnosis was one of the darkest periods of my life. I slipped into a depression I had never known before. I truly thought CML was a death sentence. I was afraid to buy anything because I figured it would just have to be sold or given away. There were days I stayed home—not because I was sick, but because I didn’t want anyone to see me fall apart.

And honestly… at that time, I didn’t care.

Through some very serious conversations with my wife, my parents, and my oncologist, I slowly crawled my way out of that hole. It didn’t happen quickly. It didn’t happen neatly. But it happened.

They say laughter is the best medicine, and while my insurance company may disagree, I’ve found it to be pretty true. If you go back and read some of my early posts, you’ll notice they don’t carry the same humor as the ones I write now. There’s a reason for that.

I still have days when the weight hits harder than others. I still have moments of fear, frustration, and fatigue. But I’ve learned that sometimes it’s better to laugh at life’s situations than to let them crush you. Humor didn’t remove cancer from my life—but it did give me a way to live with it.

So here I am, almost twelve years in. Still showing up. Still rolling the dice on lab work. Still grateful for “undetected,” even when it comes with an asterisk. Still learning. Still stumbling. Still here. And still trying to laugh whenever possible… because some days, laughter is the only thing in the room that reminds you you’re still alive.

If you’re reading this and you’re walking through cancer, or any other terminal or life-altering diagnosis, let me tell you something I had to learn the hard way: don’t give up. Don’t give up on tomorrow. Don’t give up on joy. Don’t give up on the people who love you. And don’t give up on yourself.

There will be dark days. There will be scary appointments. There will be lab results that knock the wind out of you. But there will also be days you never thought you’d see. Conversations you didn’t think you’d have. Laughs, you didn’t think you were capable of anymore. Life doesn’t end when a diagnosis begins. It just changes.

Hold on. Ask questions. Lean on the people God has put in your life. Celebrate the good days. Endure the hard ones. And if all you can do on some days is get out of bed and breathe, then that is more than enough for that day.

Almost twelve years ago, I thought my story was coming to an end.

It turns out that it was just the beginning of a very different chapter.

And as long as there’s breath in your lungs, there is still a reason to keep turning the pages.