I'm writing this about a month later than I'd planned. Going back to school full-time has been more time-consuming than I'd realised.

On Thursday, 25th February I finally reached my final milestone - my last Herceptin treatment, ending 16 months of treatment for IBC.

It was an odd sensation. I'd made an appointment at the clinic for the latest possible time so that the nurses and I could crack open the bottle of Pol Roger I'd bought to celebrate. All day at school I felt unexpectedly stressed and I now realise that it was having to face the removal of my security blanket, my three-weekly visits to my oncologist (to whom I now refer as SAINT Michael!), where I would hear him say the word "excellent" and see the pleasure on his face. I had to give myself yet another dose of common sense and accept that this is the way life will be from now on. "Be a big girl and get on with it!"

It intrigues me that I always hear my mother's voice when I give myself a good talking-to.

A couple of my clinic friends, Margaret and Jane, were in having their treatment and they shared some news with me. During my weekly Taxol treatment last January I had got to know a young woman named Jo, who was also doing weekly Taxol. I was impressed by her courage, especially in accepting that she would never have children. We lost touch when we got out of sync with our treatments and only caught up with each other in St Michael's waiting room just before Christmas. She told me that she had had her other breast removed because she has the BRACA1 gene and didn't want to risk another bout with breast cancer. But she was having problems losing the weight she had put on during treatment. I remember thinking, "You poor little thing" as I looked at her concave chest and little paunch.

It turns out that she could feel a growth in her stomach and St Michael was sufficiently concerned to send her off for a scan.

The growth is due this month!!!

I could not stop myself smiling at this fantastic news and as the nurses and I drank our champagne, I felt I was celebrating Jo's good news more than my own. Doesn't it make you believe in miracles?

I'm now facing the prospect of life unpunctuated by medical treatments and trying to give something back in tribute to the medical dream team that has looked after me so well. Last week I went for training for the Speakers' Bureau of our National Breast Cancer Foundation. Speakers help at fund-raising events, the NBCF having raised $AUD10,000,000 last year - not bad for a population as small as ours. I was pleased that all the funny stories I have been accumulating during the past year and a half raised plenty of laughs.

So that's my story - almost over. In late November/early December I will have my reconstruction. If you had told me two years ago that I would one day be looking forward to 6 hours of surgery, I'd have laughed in your face. If you'd told me that I'd be prepared to spend $AUD14,000 - ditto.