Wow - long time gone

WOW its been a long time since I have posted. So much has been going on in my life. Its so easy to get caught up in the daily grind and before you know it, valuable time has passed that you can never get back. Time that we take for granted yet suffer not one regret until something bad happens and stops you dead in your tracks.

Like it did with my boss.

My boss joined us this past October when she was transferred here by her husbands work. She's a yankee born and bred - well, damn yankee since she unpacked and decided to stay :-)

It took awhile for all of us to come to a comfortable working relationship together. There we lots of changes at work and her coming aboard was the catalyst. But we did come to a comfortable working point, and I found myself really liking her personality and the positivity she brought to the table.

In a matter of weeks she went from being reasonably healthy to having stage 4 breast cancer. And in the week of tests they performed, it was discovered the cancer had spread to her throat.

She is 42. She has a 5 year old son; a 10 year old daughter; and a 14 year old son. Needless to say, she is devastated.

It hit me hard for some reason. I find myself crying alot if I dwell on it too much; the cruelty of life's irony. I can't begin to imagine what she must be feeling, or how she manages the strength to smile and attempt to maintain some level of normalcy in her everyday life. How she manages to hold it together in a feeble attempt to help her kids from falling apart when she herself must be silently going mad........

She told me the doctors think that with chemo and surgery, she could expect another year; no guarantees. The kids will watch their mother, being slowly devastated by chemo; she will have to live, waiting for the inevitable and fearing every step of the way. It breaks my heart.

Statistically, there is a 20% survival rate for stage 4 breast cancer; best case senario for that 20% is 5 years. Ususally much less. But miracles happen. And the will to survive can conquer the unconquerable.

I know it sounds cliche but where there is life, there is hope. And I have hope.....