One year anniversary of my last chemo treatment

It's been a year since my last chemo treatment, and I've been cancer-free for about a year. It's nice that I don't have to go to so many doctor appointments, and to be back at school full-time, and it's nice just to have a regular life again. I'm writing this post just to tell you what's happened in the last few months.

Relay for Life is an event that the American Cancer Society puts on. It's an event where we fundraise money for cancer research. It's called a relay because you walk with a team around a track and you do it through the night for twelve hours. My team name was Marcos Smiles. I had eight people on the team, and we raised almost two thousand dollars. I had designed the t-shirt for my team. I tie-dyed ten t-shirts (and I still have mine).

My family supporting me at Relay for Life. My mom on the far right is wearing the team t-shirt. My grandfather is on the far left.

On May 16th, I had a survivors' reception at around 5:00 in the afternoon. Then we went to the track at Albemarle High School for the relay. First I had to set up my campsite. The event was delayed because it was raining. But at about 6:30 I gave a keynote speech. I talked about my experience with cancer and how people helped me through it and how you can beat cancer.

Me giving the keynote speech at Relay for Life

After I gave the speech, we did a survivors' lap, where people who've survived cancer take a lap around the track. My grandfather took the lap with me because he's a survivor of cancer too. Then we started the night of walking.

My family drove to Minnesota in early June. I worked at retirement home in Minnesota 2-3 times a week over the summer. Then on August 3rd I went to Young Life Camp at Rockbridge. Rockbridge is a Young Life camp with a zipline from the hill all the way into the lake (I actually did it—you hit the water hard!). There's also a ropes course and horseback riding. We also had clubs where we'd sing and play games and hear talks.

My Young Life leader Frank. He was my buddy during camp.

This is the group that I went with from Charlottesville. We dressed up as cowboys for fun. I have a harmonica in my mouth.

Make-A-Wish is an organization that helps you take a dream trip that you want to do and that you can look forward to when for you're done with cancer. They interviewed me and asked me about different trips that I wanted to do and I gave them my top three. In my trip we went in an Airstream and drove to Monterey Bay.

We flew from Charlottesville on a 5:15 AM flight to Chicago, so we woke up at 3 in the morning. They drove us to the airport in a stretch limousine. We got to Chicago at about 7:00. Then we flew from Chicago to L.A., which was a five-hour flight. After that we got picked up by the Airstream people to go back to their base. We had a two-hour course to learn how to use the Airstream. Then we left about 3:30 or 4. We had to drive about 100 miles to Santa Barbara. It was a pretty drive. Gas cost about $4.25 per gallon in California!

On the third day of our trip we came to the Monterey Bay car show. The car show is about classic cars, and the owners have to be invited to be in the show. It was over a week long and there were 215 cars there. At one point all the cars take a 70-mile drive along Highway One, near the ocean. I got to ride in a 1931 DuPont. The driver was Dicky Riegel, who's in charge of the Airstream To Go company.

Dicky's mother is a DuPont so the car is in the DuPont family.

We saw a lot of Ferraris and a lot of Porsches and Lamborghinis.

An old Porsche. It looks unusual with the big fin.

I met Sir Stirling Moss at the beginning of the car show. He's a famous racer who drove a car in 1959 and won several races.

Meeting Stirling Moss.

Wayne Craig was our docent who took us around the car show. He was like a car dictionary—he knew a lot about the cars and the people who drive them. He had a Mini Cooper that he had souped up.

After the car show we went to Pismo Beach to go surfing. It was fun. We went into the ocean with wetsuits and surfed for about two hours. It was my first time and I managed to stand up on the board.

We also went on a whale-watch in Monterey Bay. We saw over two hundred dolphins, and sea lions, humpback whales, and flocks of birds. We were on a small raft with a 500 hp motor—you could fit six people on it.

We turned around on August 14th and went back to L.A. On our way back we saw a beach full of elephant seals.

We got home four days before school started.

After school started, I got a job at Peacock Auto, a small mechanic's shop that is family-run. I answer phones, get miles off of cars, and file documents.