Monday, September 24, 2007

10 Days and counting . . . .

Hello! It's been a very emotional past week. Several things have happened w/in our family that have been joyous and also sad. My Grandmother passed away last Monday. Bless her soul, she was 95 and lived a long, fruitful life.

2 days later my dear mother was diagnosed w/ breast cancer. We are very optimistic as she is having surgery this Wednesday to remove the lump. We will know more once she has the surgery, as there are many tests they do on the surrounding tissues and lymph nodes. We know it is a long road to recovery, but there is so much love and support to go around, she will prevail! :)
As you may have known, she was originally going to travel w/ me to Taiwan so my Brett could stay home w/ the kids. But, due to circumstances, she will not be able to travel. I told her I'd rather her live long to watch Kaiya grow old than travel this one time. My longtime friend (from Girlscouts and orchestra!) :) will be travelling w/ me. She lives in NY, so she will travel to Chicago the night before and leave w/ me the following morning.

We leave October 4th!!! So excited, anxious, nervous and elated! So many emotions! We will arrive the night of October 5th-yes, a whole day and a half later! We will be staying until October 11th.
Gotcha Day is Monday, October 8th!!! I will fill you all in on the details as we get closer to travel. I have so many forms to sign, ppwk to fill out and copies to make! Plus . . . . pack, pack and more packing!

One last note on breast cancer. We never thought it would effect our family. No one has ever had it! But, we're soon realizing, it does not discriminate. 80 % of breast cancer patients have NO history of it in their families. Please be aware. I have posted some great links on information about breast cancer. Spread the word!
Nicole

2 comments:

Texan in Taiwan said...

I can't imagine how you've made it through the last week... my thoughts are with you and your family for good health and safe travels.

How wonderful of your friend to travel with you! A true friend for sure!

Hugs!

Kathryn said...

We are from Illinois, also. We almost went with JotH, but we fell in love with CHI, when we went to a meeting for Vietnam. We were going to adopt from China and then the rule change meeting happened. So we switched to Vietnam. I can't believe Journeys hasn't been approved for Vietnam yet; it's been almost 2 years since they said they were expecting approval. It looks like if we had gone with JotH and changed to Taiwan, we would either have a child or be expecting one soon. Instead we continue to wait , probably for another year or more!