birthdayMom turns 64 tomorrow. A year ago, I wrote a post to honor her on her birthday. I did it, in part, to celebrate that she seemed to have beaten the thyroid cancer that had plagued her for three years.

This summer, we received a call from a distinctly un-personable surgeon that mom’s cancer had come back, and there was nothing they could do. He said she probably had two years. The time frame was dependent on her receiving radiation, which she completed this fall. At times we thought the radiation itself would take her from us. She was sick every day and still has lasting effects. These days, we define a good day as one that doesn’t begin with the tossing of cookies.

Last week Mom had her first PET scan since the radiation. Mom could still feel tightness in her neck, and she was convinced that the radiation hadn’t worked and that the tumor was getting larger.

Mom. Was. Wrong.

The most-alarming tumor (and the only one that was treated with radiation) has shrunk more than 50 percent. The other tumors in her body — the ones that the surgeon said would take their course in the next two years — were either reduced or not changed. Mom’s oncologist encouraged her to enter a local clinical trial because there is hope. Lots of hope.

We’re taking this news to mean that the surgeon’s clock no longer applies. The cancer is not advancing. In fact, it has retreated in some areas. We’re taking this as a sign that we should all go on living each day, breathing in and out with hope and thinking wonderful thoughts of plans for tomorrow or even next week.

So, this post is another wish for my mom….. that she has the happiest of birthdays surrounded by her daughters, her grandsons, her husband and hope for the future. And I look forward to writing another happy birthday post for her 65th.