March Madness!

I love college basketball!  Slightly less than football.  Slightly more than baseball.  And what's better than college basketball in the month of March?  Well, I must admit...March Madness always kind of pissed me off a bit.  I mean, who actually gets to stay home during the middle of the week and do nothing but lay around and watch the Madness? 

ME!!!  That's who this year!  Or at least that's what I thought.  But as the month of March rolled around this year, there was more than enough Madness in my life before the Tourney even began! 

I finished my 100th round of chemo on February 28th (ok, so it's actually only my second round of this new chemo...but I swear it feels like I've been doing this for 20 years!)  And as with every round of chemo I have completed, I got a week off in between rounds.  No chemo.  No doctor's appointments.  No blood tests.  Yep, that's right!  Just me, seven injections of Neupogen, headaches, body aches, abdominal pain and countless sleepless nights!  And so the Madness began...

But apparently the cancer alone wasn't enough Madness this year.  Instead, my brother was admitted to the hospital for three days for pneumonia and pleuritis.  Less than a week later, my husband spent four nights in the hospital.  And as if that wasn't enough, my family went through a couple of other extremely difficult situations that are simply too painful for me to even write about.  (Fortunately, both my husband and brother are home now and starting to do much better!)

The mental, emotional and physical exhaustion I suffered these past couple of weeks are more than I imagined I would experience in a lifetime.  Anger, fear, frustration and disappointment replaced my usual feelings of happiness, hope, optimism and strength.  And if ever there was a time for one's faith to be tested, this was definitely it!  I couldn't understand why a family that had already suffered enough, would be subjected to any more pain and hardship.  And although I may never know why this has happened to my family and I, I do know that this is our journey.  We are stronger because of it...we are closer because of it...and together, we can get through anything!