Happy Birthday Mum

I'm sitting here wondering what to write for Mum's birthday card. Something that not only expresses how much I love her but how incredibly lucky I feel to be her daughter. The thing is, I don't think that it's quite sunk in that she's in remission and quite possibly going to be okay. Just eight months ago, we were told that her cancer was to be incurable. We were going to have to wait and see if we could prolong her life after 18 months of treatment. I can't speak for Mum or Dad, but for me the last 8 months has passed both quickly and painfully slowly. Having looked into the general statistics for pancreatic cancer patients, the odds weren't looking good. Less than 1% of patients go into long term remission.

So here we are. Full radiological and biological remission.

Amazingly good news and funnily enough I'm still having to tell myself to just breathe.

I started to look at my posts from when we first found out that Mum had pancreatic cancer. Sure that I would find some poignant or inspired words from the time as I never shared those with Mum at the time. Reading posts from the two blogs that I write, I found myself in tears. The emotions are still raw. I suppose I've been spending the last eight months trying to live from day to day and not think, not to feel. I almost lost my Mum last year. If she'd been like many pancreatic patients then she would have most likely passed away around September. I still can't find the words to say how I feel now that the outcome is what we'd been hoping for.

It would seem that I'm still lost for words. So I think, for Mum's birthday, I'm going to say:

Happy Birthday Mum. Thank you for staying positive and fighting against the odds. Thank you for ironing my dress for me before the party even when you were tired because you knew I'd do a terrible job and take twice as long doing so. Thank you for holding me and telling me it was going to be okay when we found out you had cancer and when we found out you were in remission. You truly are an inspiration and you handle what life brings you with grace and poise. I love you. Thank you.