Christmas

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas! I know I did. It was a great time with my family. So for this post I'm going to discuss my three favorite gifts that I received this year.

1. The gift of keeping my arm.

A couple weeks ago my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. For me the answer was simple; For the surgery to go well, and to have good function in my arm. I received both of these gifts this Christmas. I was blessed to have the plan for surgery change to allow for more function in my arm. Now I have a really good chance for full strength, and flexibility. I also was lucky to have such a good surgery team, and for everything about the surgery go well for me. Back in August when I was being diagnosed with all of this I wasn't sure if I would even be able to keep my arm, and now I'm sitting here typing a blog post getting ready for some rehab after I'm finished with this. It's really incredible! Thank You University of Penn.

2. Autographed Football

This one is really awesome! I received a football signed by Ewing's Sarcoma survivor, and middle linebacker for the Giants, Mark Herzlich. Back when I found out that I had Ewing's sarcoma, I found out that it was an extremely rare disease. So I researched to see if anyone famous has had this cancer with the expectation that I wouldn't find anyone due to the rarity of it. I found one person. Mark Herzlich. His story really inspires me. To have bone cancer, beat it, and then play in the NFL is really amazing. He was also treated at the University of Penn. The words: one survivor to another are written on the top. Whenever I become discouraged with my situation from now on, I will put those words into my head. One survivor to another. Thanks Uncle Paul for getting me this football, and Mark Herzlich for supporting me.

3. Your support

The amount of support my family has received throughout my battle with cancer is really incredible. The other day my blog reached a milestone. 10,000 views. It's actually at 11,000 now, and I couldn't be more surprised. When I started this blog I didn't expect to get any views at all. Now I have over 10,000 views on my blog. But most importantly I have accomplished what I created this blog for: Helping other people. When you have a rare disease, most of the time you're not going to know someone else personally who had it. When you go to the internet you're not going to see much more than statistics, and treatment options for the disease. As a patient, how are you supposed to know what the treatment for the disease will really be like. And that's why I created the blog; to help others who are fighting the same battle as me. I chose to share my experience with my cancer treatment in the hope that others will find it useful. I have been in contact with many people who have been affected by this cancer. Some have even created blogs of their own because of me. This feeling of helping others is really the best gift I could ask for. So thank you everyone for reading my blog. And to those of you who are reading this who are battling cancer or other diseases; I hope 2014 brings more healing to all of you.

I Love This Picture!