Trusting God With My Future: Celebrating My Expiry Date

I didn't know if I was going to see this birthday... but I'm here today and so grateful.

I'm thankful to be waking up this morning to the voices of my little boy & his daddy chatting and our dog following the action around having been renamed (by our son) George from JR. He's also still saying good night to one of our guests last night.

Half of the people that have my same diagnosis have died by six months. As of today, I'm very gratefully in the other 50%. Cancer is a strange disease. It's unpredictable. You don't know how aggressive it might be and so specialized that no one knows for sure if the chemo will work for the cancer or if the side effects will be tolerable for the individual. I'm thankful that chemo is killing my cancer and most days I have a genuine smile on my face.

I'm also older. Yeah! Yesterday was Xhevat's & my birthday. Yup, same day but four years apart. Of course we had to celebrate but wanted to keep it small. Being that my "expiry date" was also my birthdate, I was nervous if I'd get to this party. So I decided that our party theme should be expiry dates or best before dates... things that get better with age or things that we loved from our childhood. So we had wine/cheese/dried fruit/cheesecake/etc. We also had old things that were really good like Wagon Wheels, chocolate chip cookies, Tim Tams, and Coke in bottles. We had a smaller party and just had fun catching up and making some new friends.

It is good to celebrate the good... instead of allowing the sadness to consume you. Thank you for celebrating with me & happy expiry date to me!

P.S. Thank you to all who offered to babysit and/or drive me/us for my appointments. I've had so many offers (and birthday party planning on my mind), I'm having to figure out what to do. I will be sending out an email today with the "schedule." Thank you for all of your offers! All of my needs have been met.

I started my birthday by finishing my last dose of chemo for this cycle!