Through much of December and into the New Year my wife's mother (she hates the name mother-in-law) was in the hospital at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. She had brain surgery to remove a pair of breast cancer tumors.

While she was there we spent much time up at the hospital including several visits while Joan was in physical and occupational therapy to relearn her basic skills such as talking and walking.

When we visited for her therapy for the first time, I asked her if she would mind if I took photographs and she gladly allowed me to.

Over three different visits to therapy I gathered many photographs of Joan working so hard to return to normalcy, to be able to go home and live her life with some similarity to how it was before.

She worked very hard. The therapists would give options on what to work on and she always chose the hardest. We saw her go up and down the gym staircase, walk the halls and eventually slightly move her right arm, which did not move for several weeks after the surgery.

She is home now and going to outpatient physical therapy. The therapists at Johns Hopkins were incredible and asked her to visit when she was back in Baltimore to see the surgeon for follow.

It's a long road ahead, but she's moving forward and making progress every day.

The entire collection of images can be seen at www.jhmatthews.com/hopkins.