What a year!

I had plans for a different post but the guilt of not getting around to sending out Christmas cards got to me and I decided that 2009 was just too big a year for us to go without summing the whole thing up.

2009 began with my Dad recovering from major neck surgery that went miraculously well. In January my brother (finally!)proposed to Anna,his girlfriend of 3 years. We're all thrilled to have Anna and her two boys, Ethan and Kayden, join our family. At the same time Jake, Anna and the boys announced they were moving to Northern WI. They moved in Frebruary, not so thrilled about that.

In March, while trying to find the source of right side pain Drs found a tumor in Wayne's left kidney. To this day we still don't know the cause of the right side pain, except a sign from God. I spent the rest of the month googling and praying. After the initial diagnosis we found Dr. Joudi at the University of Iowa. I've said this before, but Dr. Joudi is FANTASTIC!! I wrote more about those first few days here, here and .

April brought surgery to remove the tumor and half of his kidney. The 2-3 day hospital stay turned in to 6 days and he was in significantly more pain than he expected but they got all the cancer and his prognosis was very good.

Wayne had some minor setbacks in his recovery in May but was able to go back to work in June, we were both nervous about whether he'd be ready but anxious for things to get back to normal. Going back on nights was difficult but after two weeks he has been able to be on days ever since which has really been a blessing. Overall, he did well at work but we struggled to get back to a routine and he was still in a considerable amount of pain. We made the decision to seriously look for a house to buy.

July found Wayne starting to really feel like a human being again for the first time in 3 months!! We really ramped up our home search and put in an offer on a house. The rest of July was spent packing, decluttering, organizing and preparing for a yard sale.

August and September were pretty much a blur with closing, renovating and then moving into our new home. Oh and let's not forget the cat bite.

October and November were spent settling into the house. On November 2nd, we got the best news from Wayne's 6 month scans. N.E.D.--No Evidence of Disease!! We truly had something to be thankful for this year.

I've had many people come up to me and say "boy I bet you're glad to see 2009 go". Yes we are,
but in many ways this is not the worst year we've ever had. In March, I couldn't imagine saying that last sentence, but looking back it could have been a lot worse. Parts of it sucked, don't get me wrong, but parts of it were really great andwe're all still here!