First, ABD is known within academia to mean a person is completed with all the requirements of a doctorate program except for the dissertation (All But Dissertation). I officially received my ABD status on May 8th when I passed my dissertation proposal defense. I overcame another hurdle. The private session with my committee after my 35-minute presentation to the public was so long and grueling that after an hour has passed, I was exhausted and ready to give up. They finally excused me for their private deliberation. When they called me in to tell me I passed, I cried. The committee members were surprised by my reaction. I explained I was so emotional because the cancer had put me off my track and it was a difficult struggle to get back on the train, so to speak. I'm finally back on the track to become Dr. Naomi.
I was so stressed out a couple of weeks leading up to the day of defense. I wanted to be sure nothing else would prevent me from getting to that milestone. I planned for several months to do the 5 Boro Bike Ride in New York City. And when my dissertation committee voted for May 8th out of three possible dates, I groaned. The bike event was May 7th. I was to ride 40+ miles the day before my dissertation proposal defense. Oy vey. Onward. I was waiting for the weather in Rochester to warm up so I could begin training again. I had not ridden my bike since before I had cancer. I didn't start training until around four weeks before the event but did not get to train much because the weather wasn't cooperating. I used the bike ride as way to process my feelings about the cancer and getting back on the track. It was a powerful moment when I biked past the place where I had my surgery. I was surprised that I finished each single mile. The final stretch was the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. It was hard and long but they painted inspirational messages on the road that applied to the ride itself, my cancer, and my dissertation journey that sustained me all the way to the finish line.
I am truly excited about my dissertation work. I am now awaiting the approval from the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB). It was the cancer that changed my dissertation topic. I had a completely different idea and threw it out after getting cancer. I felt it was important to investigate how extralinguistic knowledge influence translations of cancer words and concepts.
The second meaning of ABD is something I came up a couple of weeks ago out of inspiration. ABD= All But Disease which is similar to what oncologists say NED (No Evidence of Disease). May 22nd was my final three-month checkup. I was done with undergoing two years of quarterly checkups. My oncologist has given me the title of survivor. I discussed in an earlier post about different meanings of survivorship (http://naomicancerjourney.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-different-meanings-of-survivorship.html). Oncologists label their patients as survivors if there has been no evidence of disease for two years. For the next two years, I will have biannual checkups.
