This year has been a good year!  We have experienced many moments of joy in 2017!   This year also marks an important anniversary.

There is one part of my past that occasionally comes up in conversation, but usually I try to tuck in the back of my memories because it was painful.  Cancer – the word that nobody ever wants to hear.  I was shocked to hear it when I was 29 years old and 30 weeks pregnant with my first child, our son, Bo.

It did not seem fair to mix what should have been nothing but a joyful moment, the birth of our son, with staging of my Hodgkin’s lymphoma- having my spleen removed along with my 35 week infant.  The year 1996 was one of the most stressful years of my husband’s and my life.  We moved to a new town when Bo was 3 weeks old, my husband began his career in family practice, we had a baby with colic, we settled a new home, and I began 7 months of chemotherapy.  The treatments would wipe me out for days.  Church volunteers took over watching our son on these post-chemo days.

We somehow got through it all.  And 3 years later, God blessed us with the most amazing gift, our lovely daughter Emma.  She is a true miracle to us because there were no promises I would be able to have any more children after everything my body had endured.

So it is worth noting that 2017 marks my 20th ANNIVERSARY OF BEING CANCER-FREE!  I have the most amazing family I could ask for and I have more blessings than I ever thought were  possible!  I am so very thankful!