one baseball season: happy happy new year.

Hi friends,

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. Erik and I are doing well and currently enjoying some college football after a great date night in South Philly. I have very good news from my latest PET scan... everything is still looking good and I'm in remission 3 months after chemo ended. I'll have another scan in March and a follow-up with my oncologist to decide how often I need further follow-up. Something a little weird during my chemo treatments were these sporadic neurological symptoms with numbness and blurred vision so my oncologist recommended a brain MRI earlier this week to be sure we weren't missing anything. Thankfully I can say today that that is all clear too... so we can go back to lovingly calling these symtoms "chemo brain".

In other news, I recently left my job as a pediatric nurse practitioner in Wilmington, Delaware to return to bedside nursing in a pediatric ICU in Philadelphia. This was a long and thoughtful decision to leave a great crew of people who had supported me so well during this last year, but I believe, at least for this time in my life, that being an RN fits me best. I look forward to starting this new job on Monday.

Erik and I have had some great adventures now that I can safely fly. We went to Oklahoma to visit family and to Baton Rouge for a good friend's wedding. We then went to Newport, RI to meet family for a delicious Thanksgiving holiday and to New York for New Years with more good friends. We feel so grateful and so full.

It's been surreal to reflect on this last year... this time last year I had just identified the lump in my lower abdomen that would prompt the diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma in early February. I wanted so badly to believe that this lump was nothing and that I was healthy, but in the end I'm grateful to have found such a great healthcare team to identify what was going on and treat it so effectively. Erik and I were talking on New Years Eve about this last year and how we really do feel that it's one of the best years yet. We have learned so much about each other, our community, and our faith, and how resilient they all can be. Our goal for 2013 is to write something we are grateful for every day. Each day has something, we just want to be good at finding it. We are so thankful for everyone who has invested in our lives. Below are some pictures of our recent adventures.