The End of Chemo

T and his Aunt Jessa right after she had to shave her head for the first time.

As some of you know my little sister has cancer. She had been sick over a year and the doctors could not figure out what she had. She came home for spring break (from college) last March and my parents sent her to another doctor. It ended up that she had cancer and none of the doctors recognized the symptoms until then. Great huh.

So it was a bit of a shock for all of us, but she has been doing great and has really fought hard. And after 6 months of chemo she finally has finished and only has radiation left. The doctors have said that she is doing very well. Most of that is because my mom has been forcing her to eat and everyone has been visiting to cheer her up.

The Kids and the Cancer:
We live in an apartment attached to my parents house. It is the most wonderful living situation. We have gotten to be close to Jessa and the kids have helped raise her spirits. Every day we would go up to her room and sit with her. Most of the time she could only handle a few minutes with them (they are loud and crazy kids), but they loved visiting. T would run up and sit on her bed with her and steal all of her snacks by her bed.

It has been hard though to explain to a toddler why Aunt Jessa is always sick, goes to the doctor all of the time, and doesn't have any hair. They do love her bald head and always want to rub it. They use to get upset if she would put on a wig. One time Jessa wanted to go out with T and my Dad and T told her that she couldn't because she was sick. He also likes to pretend to take medicine just like Aunt Jessa does.

This summer we had all of the family together for the first time in almost a year. My brother Jeff (the one in the front and in the white) works and lives in Tokyo so we don't see him much. My grandparents visited at the same time and of course we had our normal house full. The picture above is our pic when everyone was here.

My parents' house is always full of people coming and going. This summer my youngest brother was of course living at home, as was my cousin Jenny (more like my other sister), and Jessa. It felt like every other week we had someone visiting. My kids love it and since we have our own place separate from my parents' house it doesn't disrupt our little routine too much.

This was our "Support Your Local Cancer Patient" picture. We have have hats or wigs on except Jessa. Even the dog has a scarf on. Jessa has worked hard fighting this cancer and I couldn't be prouder of her. She has remained pretty happy through this whole thing.

Our family picture with everyone. My parents, us four siblings, my husband and kids.

Most people give us an odd look when we say that we co-house with my parents. It is odd for America I suppose, but very common in the rest of the world. Our situation couldn't be better because we have our own 3 bedroom apartment but share resources. We get to have big family dinners and whatever affects one of us affects us all.

My family really is the most amazing group of people. We are all loud and into each others business, but we don't really fight and love being around each other. It is the way families should be and a great place to raise kids. It might not always work out that we get to live this close but for as long as we have it we will enjoy it.