Hello friends! It's been a long time since I wrote on here, and many of you have asked on how things are going so wanted to keep you in the loop. I am still doing chemo and this week will be round 11 of 14! Nearly there... phew it feels like a marathon. I'm thankful it's still very tolerable and I really have very few side effects from it. I will be so glad to finish and get my chemo port taken out this summer.

The radiation took quite a while to recover from - it was physically very draining and I found myself very low on energy for quite some time. I still struggle with some side effects from radiation like dry mouth from the radiation hitting my saliva glands and I was diagnosed with lymphedema right before the new year. This was not all that surprising from everything my body had been through, but it was a bummer with very painful tenderness under my arm and around my shoulder. I'm still doing physical & occupational therapy to help alleviate the lymphedema - using compression sleeves, special garments and a lymphatic drainage massage machine, plus seeing a therapist who performs manual lymphatic drainage and is also working on some scar tissue and mobility issues. It has helped massively and I'm feeling much more like myself.

Gabe has been fine for the last several months. After his several ER visits in the autumn, he had some tests back in Nov which confirmed it was just going to take time for the scar tissue from his surgery to fight it out for space with his colon. He is 100% back to normal and you can barely see the tiny scars from his laparoscopic surgery. He likes to tell the story still, and often talks about how he misses the hospital because they had really good room service & all his favorite drinks. So I think it's safe to say he isn't very emotionally scarred from any of it ;)

Covid has been fine for us and we were thankfully fairly unaffected by the lockdowns - work carried on as normal for both of us & we've all stayed healthy. The kids were in and out of school all year but it's actually been an enjoyable season for us, trying to make the most of the extra time together as a family. Between cancer and Gabe's appendicitis we definitely find ourselves appreciating each other and everything around us a little more than we used to. As I'm still undergoing cancer treatment, I got my first Covid shot 2 weeks ago with the next one coming next week. I'm very grateful. 

We are still so humbled by everyone who walked this journey with us over the last couples of years. All the prayers, meals, gift cards, babysitting, cleaning, grocery shopping, care packages, thoughtful notes and words of encouragement  - ALL of it has held us up and allowed us to focus on getting well and moving forward knowing our community has got our backs. Although I am not totally finished yet, the end is in sight and we are truly grateful and feel in such a good place. Thank you, thank you, thank you!