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.
Happy Halloween, all! I have had a total of about 10 trick-or-treaters so far. All less than 3 feet tall and quite scrumtious.
Now, for a scary story...
My parents came down on Sunday to celebrate my birthday with me. I had told my dad all I wanted for my birthday was for him to come with his chainsaw to take care of some wayward limbs that were threatening to fall on my car this winter (I'm very gun shy of my tree since I had two separate limb falling incidents over the summer- there's no telling what it would do with the weight of the snow!) Somehow they safely made it in the ridiculous nor'easter of a windstorm that was this past weekend in New England. So, he did as I requested- took them off, trimmed them down and my mom and I hauled off the scraps to their van and to my wood pile while he installed my new outside lights (okay, so there were TWO things I wanted for my birthday...) We finished all of that, he put the chainsaw away and we came inside to eat lunch.
We were sitting in the living room chatting while the lasagna finished baking and all of a sudden there was the loudest bang in the whole name of bangs. Pictures came flying off the wall and we sat there stunned, staring at each other. I thought it sounded like thunder, but the pictures fell, so maybe it was an earthquake? My dad got up and looked out the window to see that one of my giant pine trees had fall INTO MY HOUSE!!
We raced outside to see:
Why do my trees keep falling???
Luckily this story has a happy ending. Because not only did the tree hit my house without remotely hurting a thing, my dad was here with his chainsaw to immediately take care of it...AND this week is yard waste pick-up!!! So, I've got a huge pile of pine limbs sitting out by the road waiting patiently for the removal mice to take it all away. If it had to happen, it couldn't have happened more perfectly, in my opinion.
(Notice, how as soon as he cut off the stump the groun immediately slapped back down into place? Earth is crazy stuff!)
