1 Year

Today marks one year that our lives changed forever. On April 14, 2021 Kenzi was flown to BC Children's Hospital when they found a giant tumor in her chest. 2 days later they confirmed it was cancer and a week later, after many more tests, she was starting chemotherapy. We are so grateful to be on the other side of treatment now, but it's not without its many scars. Looking back somedays, it feels surreal and we can't even believe it happened. Other times, the emotions are still so raw that the tears won't stop flowing. 

We survived treatment by living one day at a time. From April to January, Kenzi spent 276 days away from home; 123 of those, were actually in the hospital and 50 of them were spent in Toronto. Kenzi was home in Vernon for only 13 days during treatment. Our family was separated a lot while we tried to figure out how to live in 2 completely different worlds. Childhood cancer is every parent's nightmare and it was made that much more difficult by being apart from our friends and family. Through it all, God showed himself faithful and sent reminders that He was there. During some of our darkest days, when we couldn't even put together a prayer, we know that He was listening to our tears. He truly brings peace like nothing else can. As angry as we were at times and wanted to scream, asking why this would happen, not even to us, but to our child, we knew that falling to our knees was the only way to get through it. We still don't know why, but we know God is faithful and we see, especially at Easter, just how much He loves us.

We have been home since the middle of January and Kenzi just got clean results from her 3 month scans this week. We are so thankful for answered prayers, but even though God answered our prayers the way we hoped, we know that isn't the case for everyone. It's such a struggle to see others who are still in treatment or who don't receive the desired outcome. I guess it's not for us to know God's plans, we just have to trust that He is using everything for His purpose. Jumping back into regular life is strange. Life is the same, but we aren't. We are aware of how fragile it is. We lived in survival mode for so long, that we finally had time to take a breath and try to process it all. Just when we started to feel like we were settling into life, Kenzi's scans were approaching and the anxiety built up all over again. I don't think that will ever go away, but I pray that it gets easier. Kenzi is in physio for her arm, hand, shoulder and back and the surgeon told us that this will continue on for years. The cancer is gone, but the effects are forever. 

I heard someone say a while back that it's through difficult times that we truly see God's blessings and that proved very true for us. We had hundreds of people praying for us, received so many kind words and messages and had so much support. Wes had wonderful employees who he could entrust his business to, ensuring we had a livelihood to come home to and our kids were so loved and taken care of when we couldn't be here. We are so thankful to everyone and don't even know how to show our gratitude, we just hope we can be a light and encouragement to someone who needs it.