I am now more than a year out from my first CT scan after my last round of carboplatin/paclitaxol chemotherapy - so halfway to remission (which is two years from that CT scan).  It is humbling to see where I am today versus where I was a year ago.  I have been very blessed up to this point and am thankful everyday for every extra day that I have been given.  I feel great and have been fitting better into my clothes and my hair is growing nice and long!  At the same time I get a little anxious whenever I have another dr's appt or scan, especially when I get a phone call from the office that I am not expecting!  My constant hope and prayer is that I have beaten this cancer and that it will not come back!  I want to be here for my children and my husband, to help them out and to watch them learn and grow.  I enjoy being involved in their lives and helping to teach them.

It has been hard watching another family member go through some similar and yet different cancer experiences.  I remember very vividly the feeling of the first diagnosis and the fear associated with it.  I understand the feelings of doubt and loneliness, the feeling of hopelessness and total lack of control.  When I found out my diagnosis of Stage 4 ovarian cancer I started looking at everything as if it were going to be my last:  my last Christmas?, my last Halloween?, my last birthday?, the last soccer game for my kids that I go to?  It was so hard and is still hard to think about.

The chemo treatments were very hard, although I think that being young definitely helped me.  At the same time, being young and with a young family was a blessing in some ways and harder in other ways.  It has definitely given me something to live for though and a reason to get up every morning and keep going.  Now things are pretty much back to normal - although I still have routine doctor's visits and my maintenance chemo that I have every three weeks.  Other than my scars and the port I still have in my body, the kids I don't even think that I have cancer anymore.

A couple of months ago Luke came home from school and told me about a writing assignment that they had to do at school where they had to write about a wish that they had.  Luke said that he wrote that he wished that there was no such thing as cancer or that there was a cure for it or a way to prevent it.  I thought that that was very touching.  It's sad that these kids at such a young age have had to experirence first hand what cancer can do.