I started this post almost 4 months ago, sometime around the end of April. Tonight (Nick is at scout camp and I can't sleep... ) I read through all our posts from the last year or so. I am, once again, overwhelmed by the support and love we received. Forgive me if this isn't a very cohesive post...some is from tonight, some is from 4 months ago.
The amazing thing is that, as I've read through the posts and comments, I've felt much less like crying and much more like smiling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy that my mom had cancer. I'm not happy that she had to endure 5 months of chemotherapy. I'm certainly not happy that she was miserable for a lot of those 5 months. But I am happy about the lessons learned, strengthened relationships, and (of course!!) the happy outcome!
As I've read over these posts, I've remembered the many nights I got to spend hanging with my mom (and usually at least one other sibling). I've remembered how Lucy and Griffin's births were an incredible lift and joy that our family really needed. I've remembered how close our family got, and how the past year has strengthened those bonds even more.
It's been a year. A year since we first heard the words "Mom" and "cancer" in the same sentence. A year since the "crack in the planet." A lot has happened in a year! Many wonderful and amazing things, but some pretty tough things happened, too.
We added two new babies this year, moved a few times, raised over $2,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, three of us graduated with college degrees (and everyone else sat through all three ceremonies, which is more of an accomplishment!), started new jobs, lost a lot of sleep, had a lot of fun. We experienced these and a million more fantastic things. We also experienced some tough stuff - a lot of it.
Tonight (4 months ago), Nick and I were on our way to consume some delicious ice cream after dinner. We got off I-15 on 5300 south. I started to feel a little anxious and stressed out, and couldn't really figure out why. Then I realized that we were taking the same path that Mom and I took so many times last summer to IMC for chemo treatments. That brought back a lot of memories, some of them pretty hard to revisit.
I think I sort of expected this "cancer" word to hang over our family for a long time after treatments ended, but it hasn't. I don't want to pretend that the anxiety we feel when Mom goes to the doctor or has a scan isn't real, because it most certainly is. I also want to point out that my mom probably feels the looming much more than we do.
It's easy to look back now and forget how devastated and scared we sometimes were during the last year or so. I have (aside from some dramatic teenager moments) always felt blessed to have the family that I do. But I hope our family never goes back to the way it was before cancer. My family has been forever changed by this experience, and even though I wish we could have accomplished the same things without cancer, I'm grateful for the things we learned. I guess I can't speak for all of us on how we feel about the experiences we've had, but I do know I speak for all of us when I say THANK YOU! We are so blessed to have the family and friends that we do. Thank you for supporting, loving, helping, encouraging, praying, crying, laughing, and so much more with us, for us, and all those other prepositions that go along with what I wrote. :) We love you!
