Saturday Drive

I'm not sure if it's irony or not.

But I do find it sort of ironic.

Just this very morning Kyle and I were driving
around town running Saturday morning errands.

Something we don't get to do very much anymore.

With my crazy busy schedule.  

School.

Work.

Study Time.  Class Time.

4 kids.

And oh ya, that cancer guy and all his
Doctor appointments and chemo and all that fun stuff.

My life feels full to overwhelming almost 
every day.  I miss the time when I used to
be able to decompress.  Just a little.

Decompression is good for the soul.

But today?

We had some time to drive 
and talk and it was nice to just BE.

We were talking about, JUST TODAY, how the 
acts of kindness and goodness shown to us
by people we have never even met, have touched
our lives in deep and profound (and often
private) ways in this past week.

We were amazed as we spoke that there was so
much good in our life, despite all the hard
and bad and hard and cancer and hard and 
(still) looking for jobs and hard.

But yet...

In spite of it all, we were so very very
blessed.  I think that took us both back 
just a little.  But we were grateful to
still be able to see good, in spite of hard.

Today we got home and the mailman came.

She delivered a package to our hands, that 
when opened, quite literally, shocked us into
immediate tears.  Like sobbing and trying
to catch our breath kind of tears.

Took our breath away.

A fellow Cholangiocarcinoma fighter had reached
out to us from Georgia with love and kindness
and goodness.  

Another gift of love and light during this
fight.  A gift that was SO very very
unexpected.  Which made it that much more
beautiful.

I have met a new group of 5 women online, all
of us have husbands--young, way too young--
husbands that are fighting this cancer.  
We are spread from Utah to Georgia to 
Washington to Kansas.

And yet we are connected by a simple (and awful)
common bond.  We still find ways to laugh and
joke and boost each other up on the hard days.

I consider all 5 new friends, although I have
never met one of them in person.

Someday.

So once again, during this month of thanksgiving
and gratitude...the Kyle and Dorien Nielson's 
have more to be thankful for than sad about.

We are thankful for surprises in the mail.

We are grateful for "Uncle Dave" who has 
stepped in to bless our life in ways that
we never could have imagined.  And when he
walks into our house with his red headed smile,
the kids greet him like family (for he is)
and call out, "Hi Uncle Dave!"

And we are grateful for new friends that 
love us from across the country.

People that have our back.

Once again, we are grateful for richness and
kindness and love and blessings and hope.

Do me a favor today...in spite of anything 
you have going on in your life? 

Take a minute to remember the good stuff too.

There is ALWAYS something good mixed in with
the bad.  Do something kind for someone else.

Pay it forward.  It will make you happy when you do.

And that's what I've got for today.

All because of a Saturday Drive and the mailman.

-------------------------


And a "practical update"...

Kyle goes in early on Tuesday morning to have
his Y 90 radioemboliztion done.  

The time has come for the real radioactive
tiny beads to take a dance in his liver.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  
We will keep everyone  posted via Facebook (
Team Kyle) and here and 
probably a few quick texts that can be passed 
along when we're done.

We are hoping to blast the beeswax out of 
his tumor.  Blast it into oblivion for a while.
Blast it back to the dark recesses of time.

Here's hoping!!