An Anniversary of Sorts

This weekend, the 24th and 25th of Janbuary is the one year anniversary of my Stem Cell Harvesting.  It's been an odd year full of blessings and love.

We were sure that we were harvesting stem cells and getting them back in the fall of 2014.  However, the Fall of 2014 has come and gone and my stem cells are still in a freezer.

I look back and see all we have been through.  The  massive chemo that cost me my hair for the first time.  The growth hormone shots to force my body to make many more white cells and force them into my blood stream.  The port that needed to be sewed into my neck because my veins were not big or strong enough to handle the machine that would suck the stem cells out of me.  The harvesting itself which was harder than I hoped it would be and was as hard as I was told it could be.

I look back at how hard it was to gain my strenght again, to get back to work.  How hard it was to play with my grand girls or even sit at a birthday party and not cry.

It's been a year of up and downs, of illness and health.  Of good days and bad.  Of weeks of sleeping and days of energy.

It has been a year of watching my husband do it all, from cooking and cleaning to shopping and laundry.  Driving me everywhere and holding my hand while I slept.

A year of both dogs sleeping on me, near me, checking on me throughout the night.

A year of co workers helping out, doing my job, taking over at times and wishing me luck all the time.

A year of back and forth to doctors for things not really connected to cancer but still somehow connected.

A year of friends taking me out to dinner, lunch, and breakfast to talk, laugh, ask questions and just enjoy each others company.  A year of gifts, calls, emails, cards, funny stories and prayers.  Lots of prayers.

A year of leaning on God to do what I couldn't and to meet my needs.

It's been quite the year!  I have hair now, I have energy now, I have things to do and places to go. I have a job to keep up with and friends to laugh with.
I have a husband I can cook for, and clean up after and even take care when he gets sick.
And someplace up north are my stem cells, frozen. They can stay there for 30 more years.