2 Years!!

My beautiful mom had her 2 YEAR stem-cell transplant anniversary on December 1st!  Praise the Lord :)

We were told before the transplant that that is an amazing milestone to get to and to see it come is such a miracle.  They said at 1 year she had such a better chance of not having a bad reaction to the transplant (with graphs vs host).  At 2 years the risk of the cancer coming back goes down substantially.  At 5 years they say she's "cured."  We look forward to each celebration ahead, but we are SO happy to celebrate this milestone with her!

Picture from the end of Summer at our family reunion, mom on the right with her 3 girls.  On the left is mom's sister, Sue and her 2 girls.

It still gives us a great feeling every time she goes in for a checkup (about once every 2 months or so) and gets results from her blood tests that everything looks great.  Looking back on our journey through the sickness it almost seems like a bad dream that never really happened.  We know it was very real, but it's good to see it as a faint memory rather than being in the midst of it.  Mary feels well most of the time other than the small sicknesses/allergy problems that come and go.  Her immune system is probably a little bit weaker since the cancer and treatments but it doesn't effect her on a daily basis.  She still visits her mom about every other day in Ottawa.  Grandma is always so happy to see her and Sue each day they visit.

Because God gave us this great miracle I'm blessed to live down the street from my mom as I raise my 16 month old daughter AND getting ready to welcome a new baby in April :)  My mom is also expecting her 8th grandchild in June from my brother, Adam and his wife, Bre.  She is and is going to be (even more) a busy grandma!

Thank you all for visiting our site to check in.  We hope that your Christmas season is joyful and that Jesus is on the forefront of your mind.  Thank God for sending His son Jesus to deliver us from our sins and for giving us hope through the trials of life.

Here's a music video that touched my heart.  If your life has been impacted by cancer, you'll appreciate it...

Summer

Things are still going great with Mary.  I know it's been 5 months since the last update, but thankfully, we haven't had much to report.  She was just up in Chicago to see her doctor yesterday and all her counts are great.  Her next appointment isn't for 2 months.  We are fast approaching the 2 year anniversary (December 1st) of her stem cell transplant and that is a HUGE milestone in her journey through this. God has continued to bless us and through Him, we hope to celebrate her 2nd birthday.

The picture you see is from our family vacation we just had last week up in Wisconsin.  It was a great week spent catching up, relaxing on the beach and boating, and playing games with the kids.

Thank you for your continued support and for checking in.

February Update

Hi there...thank you for checking in.  We've continued to get great reports from the doctor at Mom's checkups each month in Chicago.  Since her counts look so good Mom is now down to only ONE medicine!  What a major accomplishment from where she started a little over a year ago. 

Life is good and Mom continues to do everything she loves to do.  She visits her Mom in Ottawa a few times a week, does projects around the house, and is very much looking forward to Spring!!  Isn't everyone?  All of us kids keep her busy as well.  I'm living with Mom, Dad, and David as well and my husband and daughter until we finish fixing up our new house down the street.  So as you can imagine, we keep her busy here.  Amy is also around the house almost everyday with her 3 girls.  Julie visits whenever she can get away from Chicago and Adam and his family are going to be coming to visit from Pennsylvania in March.  We can't wait!  Dad has been very busy with work lately, as the season of outages starts this week.  He'll be working many 12+ hours over the next few months, but thankfully, he loves his job and feels blessed to have it.

We hope you're all doing well and getting through these last couple weeks of winter.  God bless you!