the christmas miracle

Our family friend, Nancy, has been battling breast cancer.  She has worked for my dad at his various businesses for 16 years and has loved me almost like the granddaughter she never had.  She's the sweetest woman with the shiniest, most positive outlook.  I think it's her crassness that I love the most about her though.  It was about 5 years ago that she was first diagnosed.  She had a single massectomy (which we all joked about for the last 5 years because she is a seriously busty little old lady- but now only uni-ly busty) and went through a few bouts of chemo, but came out easily on top.  Maybe a little more than a year ago she was having all this pain in her shoulder and back.  It was her chiropractor who, after months of failed adjustments, finally said 'wait- this might be your cancer.' 

Sure enough, it was in her lungs, in her spine, it seemed like- you name it, it had spread there.  She's been out of work for months, receiving radiation and chemo and fading away to half her size.  A few weeks before Thanksgiving she went to the hospital after days unable to get out of bed or eat or drink.  They hooked her up to an IV and this woman who has never doubted winning this batter was convinced she was dying.  The doctors put her on steroids and it activated her appetite.  When I saw her at Thanksgiving she was up and around and all about the house.  Steroids are a beautiful thing apparently.  She came back to work bit by bit the next week and was going along well, but my dad said she got a cold the week before last and it really knocked her out.  They had taken her off the steroids just before that and my dad was convinced that the steroids were just a cover.  Covering the deterioration that was really going on inside her.  He told her to stay home and Monday she went to have some more tests and scans done.  Her results came back on Thursday and my dad didn't hear from her and he convinced himself that the news was bad- that this would be Nancy's last Christmas.

Well, the tests did come back, but the news is actually amazing.  Somehow, the cancer is nowhere to be found.  Her lungs looked cloudy, but it turned out that was from her cold.  I'm going to go see her today and I think it's going to be all I can do to not burst into tears.  This, my friends, is the real Christmas Miracle.