One year

Never in my life did I think that so many changes and crazy things could happen in just a year of a person's life. This last year has certainly proved that! A year ago yesterday Dad was diagnosed with leukemia. When the doctor told us that day that he was to be admitted to the hospital that night and chemo was to begin within the next day, and that we were looking at a minimum of a 6 week stay in the hospital, I saw my world closing in. Tying my seemingly healthy Dad to a hospital bed for the next 6 weeks was something that was so far from my realm of thoughts. As I would quickly learn, this was just the start to a whirlwind year of highs and lows. Just the day before that we had learned that Mom needed major surgery for a large fibroid, and I had only known for 2 weeks that I was pregnant, and hadn't told Mom and Dad yet. It had only been a month since my great Aunt Mac died suddenly. Also, I was scheduled to start inservice for my first year of teaching the following Monday, and my classroom was nowhere near ready. I wanted to only be in that hospital room and not leave, regardless of the obligation. Eventually over the next few days, the bleak outlook we had been given on that Wednesday began to look ever so slightly better, and we tried to move along with the new reality that our lives were going to be. I made the decision to move back to Mom and Dad's so that someone would be at the house. Mom and I both began school for the year and she made preparations for surgery at Thanksgiving. Just before she had surgery my Uncle David, my Dad's brother, was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and had numerous complications along the way. Mom had successful surgery and began the healing process. Dad continued treatment for a week every month. My Aunt Karen continued the last of treatments for the lymphoma she had been diagnosed with previously. Days before Christmas were tense because Dad had begun experiencing spells of illness that led to brain scans to find some bleeding on the brain. This only delayed the last round of chemo that was supposed to be given the end of December. Fortunately this setback was yet another miracle in that it ended up clearing itself up. So Dad finished the last round of treatment in January, and we began to make preparations for Carter's arrival. Then just before he was born Dad's cousin Phil, who has been close to our family, was found dead of a heart attack. Carter's arrival was such a light at the end of the tunnel for all of us, such a sign of a new start, and then the night we came home from the hospital my Grandpa was admitted to the hospital. Within 2 days he was in multiple organ failure and we were preparing for the worst. No one was ready for this. And all the sudden, in true Grandpa fashion, all his organs began to revive themselves. He was released from the hospital less than 2 weeks after he was knocking on death's door. His and my Grandma's health has been a constant battle since then, but they are both doing better. I always thought that God gave you struggles for a reason, and couldn't figure out why he would allow our family to go through all this. I mean, its not as though we are not a close family that needed to be brought back together, so why did we all have to suffer so much, especially in such a short time period? Only He knows why, but what I am grateful for is all the good that we can celebrate on the one year anniversary of such horrible news. Dad is done with treatments and doing well, Karen is done with treatments and doing well, David, Grandma, and Grandpa are continuing to heal, and Mom is healing especially after another surgery last week to remove scar tissue from the previous surgery. Christiaan came into our lives. Carter was born and now Micah and Aly have one on the way. There are so many other things both good and bad that I can't even list them all, but that doesn't matter. If you would have asked me year ago what I thought the next year of my life would have looked like I would never have come up with any of this! It makes me super excited to see where we are a year from now! We have so much to look forward to coming up. Sorry if this post is a little lame, but it is something that has been on my mind a lot this past week. But if you were bored by it, here is what Carter has to say about that....