In honor of today's christmas festivities I would like to share a personal story
Today marked the 4 year anniversary of a Christmas that was very frightening to me and my family. My Grandma Muzz, who is now 84 years old, has always been like a rock to us. She worked for the USPS are a Rural Letter Carrier for over 30 years, in fact she was still working full time four years ago at the age of 80.
One of our holiday traditions (Thanksgiving and Christmas) has always been dinner at Grandma's house. Four years ago, Christmas 2004, was no different. The whole family went to Grandma's in anticipation of our traditional chicken noodle soup, a family tradition stemming from my grandfather's childhood during the Great Depression, and a nice ham dinner. What we found was my grandmother extremely sick. She had gotten up early and prepared the meal, but for the only time that I can remember she didn't join us. During dinner she sat in the living room in her La-Z-boy and rested. Her explaination was a bad case of the flu.
Later that night the flu was so bad that my grandfather took her to the hospital. They admitted her, ran some tests and found she had cancer in her colon and it had perforated and she had to have emergency surgery that night.
I'm glad to say that after the surgery and some chemotherapy she made a full recovery. Today she is the most healthy 84 year old woman I know, but I am extremely thankful that 2006 was yet another Christmas that I was able to spend with my Grandmother.