A lot to be thankful for…

I took some time to look back over the blogs from the past year.  Our blog before Thanksgiving last year talked about hiking Emerald Mountain together at lunch, discussions of another surgery, and how chemo was working.  It is amazing to think of the ground Brad has covered in one year’s time.  He is one STRONG S.O.B…in spirit, determination and heart.

Brad’s right side is slowly but surely coming back.  He continues to ride the trainer bike, attend physical therapy three time a week, and work around the nuances of recovery that can include speech, balance, and the opening of a maple syrup bottle.  Plus he added another component to rehab and is back in the saddle – literally.  Miss Emily joined the family a couple weeks ago – she is an amazing quarter horse that takes good care of him…not a mistress in case that is what you were thinking.   It is good to see him have the strength to saddle her all on his own, walk on the uneven dirt with her before mounting up for a ride, and smile from ear to ear as he trots around the arena.  Plus, we are working on getting our insurance company to approve a new device for his leg call Bioness.  It is a really cool technology that would help get his muscles back to firing again.  United Healthcare does not know the wrath that will come their way if they do not rethink their current decision!  You can actually check out videos of the Bioness here.

Last week threw us a small curve ball on the road to recovery – Brad ended up back in Denver with headaches and slowed speech from more brain swelling.  They think it is another batch of treatment effect and not tumor progression.  It is pretty scary (and terribly frustrating) to think of anything that could derail his progress, but he was put back on the steroids and feels 100% better.  As you can imagine we both were pretty nervous to be back in the position of cancer patient and caretaker.  Looking back does make us grateful for everything we have – but there is NO interest is revisiting any of those places.

We are flying to Florida tomorrow to be with my 93 year-old grandfather and family for Thanksgiving, and delighted to taking an actual vacation! It is overwhelming to think how much we have to be thankful for this holiday season.  Not a day goes by that we do not sit down and talk about a new revelation of healing, a friend or family member that made our day brighter, or simply how lucky we are to have each other.  I wish I could elaborate on the gratitude we feel for each day…but that would make me sound too cheesey…and you know I can’t have that.

We hope you have a great Thanksgiving.  We will be toasting you in the sunny south – BRING ON THE BEACH!