Life Updates

How do you begin blogging again when it feels as though too much of life has passed? It's so hard to know where to begin and yet, I want to document all that is happening. So here we go, again. First, our fourth little one arrived ten months ago, seriously, ten months! We had an incredible birthing experience with a midwife; maybe I'll blog about it one day, but probably not. Suffice it to say, we arrived at the birthing center at about 10:15 pm and were home around 2:00 am. Charles said it was like we went through the drive-thru and came home with a 9lb 9oz baby. It wasn't exactly like that for me...ha! At any rate, he is a delight. Secondly, in July my baby sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I do not feel I can adequately express the depth of emotion her diagnosis brought. I will be honest, as she went in for her biopsy, after a mammogram and an ultrasound, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she did not have breast cancer. There was no way!! I was so very wrong...after the biopsy and a day of various body scans, she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She began chemotherapy right away and has been receiving treatments all fall. There are moments in life that define life and this is one of those. There will forever be life before my sister's diagnosis and life after. And then, in August, another such moment occurred. I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Even typing those words it almost feels as though the air was knocked right out of me, again. Stage 4 breast cancer...honestly, there are days I still do not even know how to process it.