1 Year, And Many More to Go

Today I will celebrate the anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis spending it with one of the special men in my life, Nicolas Frederic Barsun, my grandson. And it will be a wonderful day for sure.

Nico, as he is fondly called by us all, is a mere 5 months old. His momma is recently back to work and I am blessed to be able to watch him one day a week. It is about a 1.5 hour drive to where they live, but well worth the effort. We will get out for a long walk of an hour or more, play around the house, have a few bottles, hopefully a nice nap, and just enjoy each other's company.

It was just about the time I was ready to start my chemotherapy last February that Mark and I received the very welcome news that our oldest daughter, Alura, was pregnant for the first time. We had all but given up that she and Stephan would have a family and had stopped mentioning children. After all, they had just adopted their second greyhound so that must have sealed the deal, right? So it was much to our surprise when Alura appropriately waited until after I had my treatment plan in place, coming with me to all my initial surgeon and oncologist appointments to help us navigate the system, as any good Nurse Practitioner daughter should/would do, to tell us of this happy and exciting news. 

Then it was a little over a month later that younger daughter, Sarah, announced that she and her husband Chris would be welcoming their first child just a couple of months after her sister. 

Yes, we would finally be blessed to wear the title of Grandparent!

So you see, The Lost Year of cancer was not to be. While a good part of the year was not pleasant, actually down right miserable, the anticipation of welcoming two grandsons to our lives gave us the hope we needed to help endure the months of chemo, surgery and radiation.

And I am also honored to watch Gaige, our second grandson (Sarah and Chris' baby) once a week too. And on Sunday, we spent the evening with Sarah and Gaige, who is just 10 weeks old. So I continue to celebrate so very much, AND life does continue after breast cancer, and it can be good. AND IT IS VERY GOOD!

Hugs,

Debbie... aka the cancer warrior ... AND SURVIVOR!!!

LIVESTRONG: 

I AM STRONG. I AM LOVED. I AM HEALTHY!