We All Float On.

Last Friday beautiful Katie Krize ended her battle and is now cancer free forever.  As Katie moves on now to live forever in happiness and freedom, someone else who I love very much will begin their battle with cancer.  My beautiful, strong, independent, and amazing mother has been diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma, and will have her kidney removed in a few weeks.  The doctors are being incredibly positive about this, and so we are as well.  My mom is so lucky that it blows my mind.  They're pretty positive that they caught this before it could be a lot worse, so hopefully, after her surgery, she won't need anything else.  (This cancer is unresponsive to chemotherapy and radiation... which is a good and bad thing)  

My mom will be fine, she is strong and she has been a fighter her whole entire life.  She has done amazing things as a mother, and as Kelsey put it yesterday, "This is only a speed bump".  

Things for me are going to change for a little while.  I am moving back north so that I can be with my family.  I'm not exactly sure where I am going to live yet, but it will be somewhere in the DE/MD area.  I am deferring for a semester, since my tuition is already paid.. I still need to call UNCG, but I'm pretty sure that they will just let me save the money that we've already paid, and use it for the spring semester.  (Does anyone know anything about this?  Or heard of this happening before?  Was the university cooperative?)  

This also means another big change for me.  Much to my mom's disappointment, I am no longer applying to go on study abroad to South Africa.  I have my reasons, and in my opinion, they are pretty obvious, so that's all I will say about that.  South Africa isn't going anywhere.

Another big thing that will happen is that my mom has to move out of her apartment.  When she got very sick in June with CMV (which eventually became her blessing in disguise) she used up all of her sick time and paid leave.  This means that now that she needs a major surgery that will take 6-8 weeks of recovery, she won't be getting paid for any of that.  So, we are packing up our apartment and putting everything in storage.  My mom is moving in with one of her very best friends, who will help take care of her during all of this.  My mom is incredibly lucky to have such an strong support system.  It gives me peace of mind to know that.  So, we will be packing up my mom's apartment in the next few weeks and finding a place to store everything.  

It's amazing how something like this changes your perspective on so many things, and so quickly.  At the moment, I am still somewhat numb and just in shock, but I already feel so positive about it.  I still worry every second, and I can't let myself think of anything except my mom coming out of this even stronger and healthier.  So, please, do the same.

Love,

Kristen