Oh you sweet little pretty thing called love: The Cancer

Guys! look! I didn't wait another year to blog!

January brought just about the worst news our family has ever received. Momma Jo found a lump under her arm and went to get it looked at. They did a biopsy and it came back as the cancer of the breastses. Honestly, January and February are pretty much a huge blur now and I really don't care to remember it. I do remember the key events though.. Mom had many a doctor appointments with I swear like a million different doctors! She decided with the advice and support of her doctor to have single mastectomy. They were pretty dang sure it had not spread to her right side. They did however, know that it was stage 2 because it had spread to those lymph nodes under her arm. She had surgery and they removed her left boobie and those stupid little lymph nodes. She recovered fairly quickly and was told she needed to get up and walk and move so she didn't get pneumonia. Well.... as luck would have it, she got pneumonia. What the crap. She was admitted into the hospital and man was that a nasty sickness! To make matters worse, she had a horrible reaction to one of the medications she was on and that sent her into Renal (kidney) failure. Her short 3 day stay in the hospital slowly turned into 17 long days of H, E, double hockey sticks. It was the WORST! We took turns at the hospital and even celebrated my daddy's birthday there so we could all be together. Mom had to do a bunch of dialysis to clean out her kidneys and eventually her pneumonia lightened up and she was finally able to come home. Those 17 days brought us all super close and forced us to love each other more than we thought possible. I just have to say... I have the most amazing family in the world! Honestly I could not ask for better people to be with for eternity. I am especially grateful for my dad through all of this. It's true what they say, " They greatest thing a father can do for his daughter is to love her mother". My dad took on a brand new program at work in November, a group home for teenage girls. It has been a huge ordeal and was set to open the week my mom got her mastectomy. Between everything going on in his life, he never once complained about a thing. I never doubted that he loved my mom a whole bunch, but I had never seen how strong his love really is for her. He has been so strong this year and has always been such a great example to me and my other siblings. I stinking love that man!

Mom started Chemotherapy in March. She had to have six rounds and would go in every three weeks and it usually took about 4-6 hours each time. Usually the first week after treatment was horrible, horrible, horrible. But then the following two weeks would USUALLY be pretty okay. Thankfully, she made it until the second to last treatment until it was interrupted. Her levels have to be okay for her to have chemo and that second to last one, they just weren't at the right numbers. So that set her back a week, no biggie. She was scheduled to finish on July 2nd but ended up finishing on July 7th. After about a month she started radiation. She went in every week day for 5 weeks to have that done. She finished last week and is now cancer free! Although she is still having horrible aftermath side affects from Chemo (mostly depression, which believe it or not is very common for cancer patients when they finish treatment) she is trugging right a long. She will schedule her next surgery for January where she will have her reconstructive done on her left side and reduction on her right. After that.... DISNEYLAND!!

My mom is a fighter. I don't think she realizes exactly how much we all need her in our lives. I am so grateful that she fought through all the stupid fall backs and pain (emotional and physical) and hair loss and frustration and gnarly sunburns and blisters from radiation and all the other crap that comes with cancer treatment. I am SO grateful that she fought so hard. I am SO grateful for the love and support of our family and friends. We could not have gotten through this year without them. We are so blessed to have such amazing people in our lives and people who love our mom so dang much they would do anything for her. So thank you. Thank you Thank you THANK YOU!

And mom, thanks for kicking cancer's trash so we can keep you forever! I love you!