Xmas is over
So Christmas came and went. For the first time that I can remember I am very sad to see it go. I would love to say that the holidays this year went flawless but they were far from it. Overall there were more good times then bad ones. I did a lot of thinking this Christmas though. Funny to me how I have been going around this whole year and I finally woke up during the end of it. 2008 is gonna be a big year for me. I am getting married, planning on buying a house for my bride and I to continue our life together in. I found myself thinking about what the best Xmas present I got this year was a couple of times over the holidays and I realized it on Xmas day. It was an extra day with my parents. For those of you that don’t know, my mom has been sick for about 2 years now, and as of late she has been feeling so bad that she has told me a couple of times not to come around. I know that she doesn’t tell me that because she has bad feelings toward me or anything she is just very tired these days and not feeling well. When you are sick the last thing you want is a bunch of people fussing over you and my mother is no different. She is the strongest person I know and also the most stubborn. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in March of 2005 and she has fought tooth and nail to get herself rid of it. She is also a diabetic and has been awesome about that. She fought so hard that she even wouldn’t stop working. She had her surgeries and rested for 2 weeks and was back on her laptop still 30-40 hours a week. She went through chemo for a year and a half and stood up as strong as she could to fight back against it, and in August of 2007 she had her last chemo session and was declared well again. Though there are some complications that cancer patients have that many people don’t think about. That being that the immue system is weak and doesn’t fight hard. In April of 2007 she remembered stubbing her toe on the deck out back of their house and it became infected, she didn’t notice it at first due to the loss of feeling in her feet from the chemo but once it became gross looking, she went to the doctors. They cleaned it out and gave her some antibiotics and it started to look better so they thought they were out of the woods. Well apparently the staph infection in her food spread into her blood stream and just this past November she had to spend 3 weeks in and out of surgery in the hospital. She had 2 toes removed and has been on Antibiotics for the better part of 2 months trying to fight it off. They have also found a tumor inside her abdomen that has a 15% chance of being cancerous. So needless to say she has been sick and trying to get better. Well now that the history is out there, I guess the present should come around. Valerie and I had planned on spending the weekend before Xmas at her folks place which was nice but very stressful and didn’t do well for our tempers on the way home. We had just planned on spending time with friends on Christmas Eve and going over spend the whole Xmas day with my family. Last minute we were invited over for Xmas Eve supper with my folks since my mother was feeling a bit better and Valerie didn’t mind changing plans last minute. I am choosing to think of it as the Christmas gift that she didn’t know she was getting me, because it was the best one I could have gotten this year. So thank you honey, from the bottom of my heart, thank you! I know this all may not sound very serious to some and that it may sound as if I am worried over my mother for nothing. Who knows maybe I am. But I know that my mother has been through enough these past couple years and deserves a break. There are 2 women I hold above all else in my life, mom and Valerie. So in the end the fact that I got to spend the holidays with them means the most to me above and beyond all the other drama or stresses of my life. I am sad to see Christmas go because it felt good while it was here. It felt like it was a different time, and it felt like it was extraordinary. I am going to miss that feeling. I just hope that 2008 is better for my family and those out there that I care about.