So Sharkey and I are off to the MidWest tomorrow. It's nice to get away for a bit. I've been burning the candle at both ends. I can totally relate with Soozieq's hectic life she's been living (although I think Soozieq has me beat and may have been burning two candles at the same time while juggling a third in the air). It will definitely be nice to leave the work laptop at home, change the office phone message to, "JP is out of the office and will not return your call for many days, so figure it out your freakin' self!" Yeah, that's not exactly it, but haven't you wanted to say something like that?
I'll be taking the sticks with me. It is "vacation" after all! I plan on dragging out Character Builder's hubbie for 18 holes and maybe I may get a chance to get some range time here and there (as time and Sharkey permit).
Sharkey and I were talking about driving by her old house for some drive by Nikon shots. Lot's of good memories there!! It'll be interesting to see how it has/has not changed in 6 years. She told me she had a dream we bought that place back. Foreshadowing?? Hummm....
Yeah, things have totally changed for sure. Who'd have ever thought we'd go through so much in such a short amount of time. Which leads me to my take on the past 6 years. You've read Sharkey's take, so now it is my turn.
So Sharkey and I were married, settled in PA and were living the good life. We would just sit back at times and just marveled how great we had it and how great our life was and being married to each other was just awesome. Well, after about a year, Sharkey and I decided it was time to start family planning. The funny part was that decision started us down a road neither of us was ever expecting to travel. Sharkey had a found a lump in her right breast and we shortly found out it was invasive breast cancer.
Life just spiraled out of control from there. We went through the whole battery of tests and diagnostics. I can remember thinking how our seemingly perfect life was turned upside down. At no time did we ever catch a break. Well maybe the cancer was contained to a single area? Nope it was not. Maybe none of her lymph nodes were affected? No there were several. Talk about scary. And talk about all the information to get through. I am an analytical guy. I know numbers. I know statistics. I know probabilities. I can also interpret and disseminate loads of technical and medical information. I knew how serious Sharkey's condition was and my job was to act as her buffer. She didn't want to know what the chances were for this or that. In a way that's better for some people. But that's just not my style. I need to know. I always felt that an educated guess is better than shooting in the dark and relying on a physician for the only direction. There are many things I know even today that Sharkey does not know. I think it is better that she didn't know a lot of things and I was/am willing to carry that burden for her. Attitude in a lot of cases like hers is everything. I tried to make sure hers was as positive as I could help her to be. But I don't have to tell you what a trooper Sharkey is. She's as tough as they come.
I did everything I possibly could to support her. It's the only thing I could do. I went with her to all of her appointments. I went with her to all her treatments. I'd make sure she eat, stay hydrated, take her meds on time round the clock, and that everything was kept as clean as I could. Chemo does a job on the immune system, so we had to be careful with infections, foods, crowds for a certain time after her treatments so her body would have time to rebound and regain immunity again. I learned what she'd tolerate as far as foods went after treatment and I found the hard way that aromatic food were OUT after treatments. Surprisingly, milkshakes turned out to be a winner after treatments.
Cancer is an emotional roller coaster. In the beginning we really could not catch a break. It was one bad thing after another. One disappointment after another. One scare after another. The first year was the scariest. After the initial diagnosis, she went through an operation, then treatment of chemo. She had a recurrence 6 months later, while undergoing Chemo, which was absolutely not supposed to happen. Bad news again.
But we made headway. Sharkey's CT scans and bone scans came out negative. After a year they were still negative. And here we are in the 5th year and everything is still negative.
I never talked about my wife's cancer with other guys going through the same thing as me. I never went to any cancer support groups. My faith was my support. Yes, JP believes in God. As analytical and logical as JP is, I know there's more to life than just what we can see, hear, touch, and smell. I remember my church Pastor asking me "How are you doing?" My answer was, "I'm OK, I wish what was happening to Sharkey was happening to me instead, but it's not my call, so I just have to trust God knows what He's doing." I prayed daily for Sharkey. Still do. I never ever had the attitude of thinking I could ever tell God what to do or make God a deal for her life. When you think about it, what can you offer to God that He would want anyway? So I would ask daily if He were willing to please let Sharkey be healed and whole. And when you deal with something as serious as cancer I'm of the mind set that medicine is only part of the real cure. I'm glad that as of late my prayers have turned to ones of thanks instead of ones of need, and I hope that they stay that way for a long time...
No comments:
Post a Comment