Introduction

my mom's 50th birthday on 4.16.11

Every time I look at this picture, I can't help but want to go back to that weekend I was home.  It was the middle of spring quarter, and the last time I was home before I went back when school ended.  Even in the midst of crazy midterm week, I made sure to make the time to go home to celebrate with my mom and I still remember how happy she was when I went back home. heck, i think we were all happy, i mean my entire family is smiling at the same time in that picture. what turned out to be an awkward photo session in the living room, turned out to be one of my favorite memories, a memory i would love to go back and relive again; if i had known this would be the last time everything was relatively normal in my family, i would've cherished each moment more than i did at the time. 

Fast forward to the week of finals, at the time I didn't know, but one night my mom was feeling terrible so she called her doctor and the doc said to go to the ER.  they did an initial physical and couldnt find anything, so they prepped her for a colonoscopy later the next day and when they were going through the large intestines they found this massive polyp.  took it off the wall of the intestine...and sent it to pathology to check it out.  so the pathology report came back and then they found cancerous cells on the stalk of the polyp.  At the time, no one knew anything, did the cancer spread already? was it just the polyp? what stage was the cancer? etc. etc.  keep in mind, this is during the saturday before finals week and they decided not to tell me.  they didnt tell me until school ended and i came back home.  was that for the better? mayb...probably...a friend of mine told me it's probably because they knew i'd drop everything and come home no matter what.  and i now that i think of it...i'm pretty sure i would.  but anyways, so fast forward to end of finals, when i saw my mom again she told me what happened while i was at school and told me she told me she had cancer.  at first i was in shock, i didnt know what to think...i mean i've seen cancer, i'ver seen it in my life more times than i wish, but never has it been this close to my heart.  and it didnt hit me until i was telling my good friend about through vidchat and i broke down crying.  I havnt cried that hard in a long time, and i guess i was so scared cuz i thot of the worst that could happen, for my mom, my family, for me...it was just hard for me to accept.

freshman year in college, was absolutely amazing for me, i felt like...everything was going well, i felt a joy that i hadnt felt in a long long time after really accepting Christ and learning about him through aacf.  but spring quarter came along n it was hard in many ways yet wonderful too. i didnt go home very often cuz i was so busy and it's something... i was gone for 6 weeks thinking how good it would be to go home, but then i came home and my world is turned upside down and i knew it would never quite be the same.