Forever grateful and blessed!!!!

Best news of the week!!!  Yesterday I had my 3 month cancer followup after diagnosis 14 November 2019, surgery 4 December and chemo started 26 December 2019 (yes the day after Christmas) - my deal was "git it goin'".  The last chemo ended 30 April 2020 and yesterday was good news again with again the CA125 cancer marking going down slow but sure and now at 48 and started at 971.  Normal is 30 or less so I'm getting there!  Back every 3 months until the 2 year point April 2022 and then every 6 months for another 3 years and then who knows!

Life has a lot of blessings along with struggles!!!  This week after it being cancelled last year we got to attend the Humor to Fight  the Tumor gala downtown at the Depot to raise money for brain cancer research and awareness.  Daughter-in-law Amy works very hard on the committee all the time and we are proud to help sponsor.  We had 10 at our table - family and friends.

Ross and Chris all decked out in suits.  Ross had to actually buy a new suit so he should be good to go for a while - where?????

We were honored to meet a friend of Amy's at our table with her husband and they were diagnosed about the same time with 2 little kids back in 2010.

And we call ourselves the cancer survivors!!!

We as before spent a while looking at the Tribute Wall where Amy is seen - along with a lot of others of all ages some no longer alive.

Beautiful setup for our table for 10!

It's always a great presentation of speakers, lots of stories and of course laughter and this time was a comedian.

And of course part of the silence at the gala was in honor of the lives lost on 9/11 which included wat we call our Hometown Hero" Tom Burnett who with other passengers raced to the cockpit to take down the flight in Shanksville, PA so it would not hit the White House or the pentagon.  

So we have a really really old elm tree in our yard and it's nearing it's last days as a big branch nearly landed on our house in May 2018 a few days before we were heading out of the country.  This is on the other side so toward the sidewalk and street.  Got a guy in line to take down the whole tree but backlog of course!

It's a pretty darn big tree!!!

And of course back to trip planning and this time we leave in about 18 days or so and start in Krakow, Poland and end in Berlin with 8 days on a river Danube cruise - woohoo - finally we get to go again with our travel buddies but of course fingers crossed every day as things change with COVID and "stuff" .  We were in Berlin in 2007 on our own and what a sad history of the holocaust.

This time we will be on a tour and I'm busy "studying" the 27 page tour document and our last night in Berlin apparently we get to have a dinner at the rooftop restaurant at the Reichstag (which is not open to visit right now).

Starting our trip in Krakow brings back significant memories from 2010 on our own there.  We decided Ross needed to go to the emergency room in Krakow for some bright red "stuff" on his legs.  Thank goodness all was OK and they didn't even know how to charge us a cent!  The picture is from the "Amercan" ER which only had Ross compared to the packed one with occupied beds in the hallway with Polish residents.

And a little shot of the big branch on the left side that almost hit our house in 2018 but was saved by the strength of a maple tree right in front of the house!!! 

So how old is this tree - I saved the trunk as I thought it was pretty interesting!