Five Years

Five years ago today I was getting a biopsy. I was in the hospital in St. Louis wondering what I had and what it was going to take to get rid of it. I couldn't see my future because there were so many unknowns. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that I would be fine and that I'd even get to have another baby AND a treehouse. Maybe I did. Maybe that's why I felt fine through the whole thing.

It really seems like a dream. It went by so quickly and was over. After October, I start seeing my oncologist once a year! Phew. I have a few long-term effects from the chemo and radiation, but nothing that holds me back too much. My heart is a little scarred and we're working out a plan for that. Nothing life-threatening or scary.

This year has been kind of crazy because I did all the things I did that summer. We had the same reunions, went on the same big vacation and even played on the same jump house. All things I haven't done in between. So of course I have been worried but the odds of it coming back now are less than 3%. So maybe I didn't catch it in Tahiti or like a germ that smells like feet on the jump house. It was just lightning.

I went back and read some of the blog from the beginning and it was good. Not the blog, the time. All of it. Definitely worth it. There was a woman on the radio a few months back talking about how she had a near-death experience. She had been an atheist and woke up a Christian. But that's not what stuck out to me. They asked her, if she could communicate one thing she learned on "the other side", what would it be? She said,"It's hard to explain because it doesn't make sense. The most important thing I learned is that the good in life is good but the bad is also good." I couldn't agree more.

Thanks again to everyone who helped and supported us so much during that time. You changed my life.