The Most Incredible Year

So finally Steven went for his blood work this past Wednesday and dropped the results off with me today. Every single one of his counts are in the normal range! I know that other tests are more important than this one, and that the leukemic load can be really high and gleevec will still render his blood counts normal. BUT. This is lovely. We know that he is reacting well to everything so only have reason to know that all is well. He looks less pale even with the stresses of Christmas and year end exams and.................. it was just good to see those results all in the right places!
Big Smiles
What a Christmas gift.

I dont think there is a family out there that has not been touched by cancer in one form or another. I thought we were one of those few and fortunate families, but I had put to the back ofmy mind my aunt who passed away from cancer when I was a teenager, a sister in law who passed when I was in my early twenties and my maternal grandmother who died from leukemia many many years before I was born.

This Christmas is the first year that we all have cancer full in our faces. But it will not go down as 'our first Christmas with cancer' but rather the first year that we have seen what is really important and the beginning of a new way of living, despite the fact that cancer is now thoroughly in our lives. We will learn each day to find joy and special times and be thankful for the extra depth and friendships this is adding to our lives. I know that we are all really, really fortunate that it is this type of leukemia and that Steven is not only reacting to the medications so well, but it handling it all apparently very well. I heard the other day that he often forgets he has this disease, and that was about the best thing I could have heard! :-)

It was with a really thankful heart that I wrapped all our Christmas gifts today. I took a moment to think and try to imagine how it could/would have been had the cancer been of a worse strain or Stevens reactions to his meds, non responsive. I thought of all those families that will struggle with the empty place in their homes and hearts this Christmas especially, and I could only be deeply grateful that I could wrap those gifts with a smile and a prayer of thanks.

Of course I thought of the many other people I have met or who I talk to since April this year. Penny's family are so much in my heart and mind as are the other really special people who have helped me through these past nine months. Trish, Debs, Gloria - just to mention a few - thank you! After knowing Penny for such a relatively short time, I dont quite understand how I can miss her the way I do. But I do. So much good came out of such a short space of time of knowing her and that empty space she left is large. Miss ya, girl. I think of you so often.

So as I wrapped the gifts to go under the tree this year, I realized that I had been given so many special gifts in the form of kindness, love, laughs, friendship, understanding and so much more, all year through - so much has been added to my life in such a short space of time.

Instead of it being a 'bad year', 2006 will go down in my memories as the most incredible year yet. The absolutely most incredible year filled with the most wonderful, amazing people.

Steven - you are still my hero!

Love and Light
Annie