Very Merry and Blessed Holiday

The whole Fam! 

Christmas 2018 came and went. We had a full house on Christmas Eve (three boys home at once!) and we all managed to squeeze around the dining room table. I tried to fill mom up with as much cookies, candy and lasagna as she could handle and I even made Grandma McCann's "Snack Puffs" recipe - Corn Pops with a caramel coating (just downright evil). Tom and I got mom a new and improved FitBit that has more features than her other one, so I'm sure she will be walking off those Snack Puffs around Geneseo for awhile!

The holidays have not been without heartbreak. We lost my cousin Heather, who was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer a couple of years after mom was diagnosed. Things went rapidly downhill the week of Thanksgiving. Heather had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks with a lot of small bowel issues as the lesions on her organs had rapidly expanded into tumors. Surgeons took a look and determined that there was not a lot to be done, Heather went home with hospice care and passed on December 5. She was only 46.

Mom and I went to see Heather a few days before she passed. For the first time in six years (since she was diagnosed), I really got the full effect of how much the cancer had sucked the life out of her. Heather was always sassy and full of fun... even in this last year, but her last couple of months of life were less than wonderful as her body caved in to cancer. It was ugly and painful but I am comforted by the fact that she went peacefully at the end.

The week before Christmas, mom also lost one of her dear friends, Judy DeBoever, to cancer. Judy was diagnosed with breast cancer before mom was diagnosed with her cancer, and Judy was a world of help and inspiration to mom as she was going through her surgery and chemo. Over the years, Judy's cancer metastasized to bone cancer and then to her liver. Judy's health took a turn for the worse right at about the time of Thanksgiving and she passed on December 16.

I had only been around Judy a handful of times... but she was one of the most enthusiastic people I will ever meet. She never let her cancer get her down, and I think that is why mom has that same attitude about cancer. It is not going to get her down either.

We were blessed to have a nice holiday with family and friends - and are looking forward to an uneventful 2019 other than routine visits with Dr. Porubcin and the usual blood work and port flushes. I'm sure we will sneak a few road trips in as well!