My Apologies

So it appears that my last post was all the way back in June of 2011. This hiatus was not intentional. Several things have conspired over the past nine months to keep me from this blog. Of course college was one of them. My last few quarters were very intense and took a majority of my free time. I haven't done hardly any hiking nor have I made any new maps recently. Thankfully I graduated this March so that chapter of my life is over.

The other occurrence in my life, the more major of the two, is still on going. My wife had several odd medical incidents last summer starting in mid-June. By September we had learned that my wife had Stage 4 Adenocarcinoma of the Lung. Our lives have been dramatically altered as you can imagine. A 34 year old non-smoker is not supposed to develop lung cancer.

My wife has gone through her first round of chemotherapy and I'm happy to report that her cancer has responded favorably. She's currently on maintenance therapy to keep the cancer at bay for as long as possible. Yet she's not out of the woods by a long stretch. There is no cure for her disease and because her disease has metastasized it is also inoperable. We are hoping to get a few months to a year of progression free living for her. This would give science time to find a cure.

There has been so much progress in cancer research over the last decade that I am hopeful that science is on the cusp of saving people like my wife from a horrible fate.

So, I am back. I plan on blogging much more frequently and since I have a hike planned for May, I'll have another trail report to make. (Yes, I still need to write up a trip report for the Cranberry Wilderness, I know.)

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!

~Occasional Hyker