2024 Update - Health and Family
Happy belated holidays and happy new year! We enjoyed our first cancer free Christmas in four years, doing all our family traditions unencumbered by looming doctor appointments.
Family Updates
A highlight of the year was our family trip to Costa Rica back in the end of April/May, and getting to explore new places with the kids, international travel suits them well. Also, the YouTube videos that we watched in preparation for traveling with kids and learning about all the tips and tricks other parents do with their kids when traveling were super helpful!
Another exciting and serendipitous thing that happened this year was being in the right place at the right time and accepting a sourdough starter that was brought to church by a friend for another friend who had already just gotten one, I reluctantly accepted knowing nothing about how to care for said starter! Thank goodness for YouTube, yet again! Needless to say, sourdough is amazing, and the real miracle here is that after 3 years of keto, my body has adjusted nicely back into having regular carbs again and I’m not up the million pounds I should be from eating homemade sourdough english muffins for breakfast every morning for the last 4+ months straight. God is good.
The kids are all doing well in school and enjoying the routine of life. Reegan started basketball last month and is really loving the sport and especially the teamwork involved, the comradery really fills her social cup.
Braddock is growing faster than Donald farms livestock, and has fully surpassed Reegan in height and weight, coming in at the 99th percentile for his age. Boy is big, as is his appetite! He’s not doing Taekwondo anymore, the drive to battleground twice a week was proving a bit much, and we’re thinking of putting him in Jujitsu here in town, some of his cousins have been going there and love it!
Waverly is my “baby”, she’s doing awesome in 1st grade, straight A student. As much as I wish I could stop time or keep her a baby forever, she’s so funny and sarcastic and weird, it’s kind of the best. You never know what she's going to say! She’s the child that I’m mildly ready to throw my hand over her mouth whenever we’re in public, but a part of me hesitates because *sometimes its pure gold. And I hope she never learns how to say her r’s and that she’ll always call us her “pai-wents”
Health Update
Health wise, I have a scan coming up January 11th at 12:35pm, it’s routine, I haven’t gotten images since September, so it’s time. We talked with my Oncologist last month, and though my bloodwork showed zero circulating tumor cells (through the Signatera test), Dr Chen said there’s been some “discrepancies” with this test, meaning other patients have tested “0” like me, but found cancer through imaging that the Signatera did not detect. *New fear unlocked*
Not really fearing over here, but the joke still stands lol
In all honesty, it was frustrating to find this out that the test we thought gave us certainty, without all the radiation of imaging, is not as dependable as we had hoped. As Jamison has preached in the past, “trials reveal our anchor”. When life is easy and we’re just coasting on the sunny seas, you’re not worried about being tied down. But when you’re in the middle of a storm, you’ll become fully aware of how well your anchor works, if you have one at all. That is one thing that is a constant source of gratitude for us, as every time cancer has returned uninvited and unwelcome, we’ve become familiar with our anchor and just how strong it holds and keeps us. It’s trusted and dependable.
Hebrews 6:19-20
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…
We’re excited for the new year, and some new change hopefully coming for our family (no, I'm not pregnant ha) and what God has for us, we look to our anchor with hope and anticipation to see Him work, move, grow and change us in the New Year as always and we trust Him with the future!
Thank you for continuing to pray for and support us, yours truly
-Rachel
