The Power of Love
I'm sorry I haven't made a YouTube video in such a long time. My heart hasn't been in it lately but I will return.
That's not why I'm writing today. I want to tell of you of the sweetest love story I know. One that makes me cry while typing this out.
In October a few years back I wrote about my beautiful friend Candy and her survival story of Breast Cancer.
Sadly she passed away last week.
She won and fought for so long. Her breast cancer showed it's ugly face when she was in her 30's. After her mastectomy, she had breast reconstruction surgery. The plastic surgeon tunneled fat from her tummy and formed a new breast from that fat.
All was wonderful.
She was alive and felt whole again after the dreadful loss of a breast. (All of us as women know how painful a loss that would be)
28 years later, about a year ago, Candy began experiencing horrible pain in her stomach. The cancer had a trail to go to and it was now in her stomach lining. She was in for the fight of her life. She went thru chemo and more chemo. So much chemo that her fingertips turned black and were numb. She lost her hair and it grew back, more chemo and gone again.
Finally, her doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. They sent her home with a morphine pump and a bag to go to the bathroom in....
Candy had been married for years to the man of her heart. Her soulmate Dan. She loved him with all of her being. He loved his booze and other illegal things. They divorced but Candy never stopped her love and affection for Dan. She did everything to mend the relationship but it was not to be. Dan loved her too but had other loves.
The doctors told hospice no more food or water for Candy. She would lie in bed wracked in pain and ask about her one love, Dan.
For 5 weeks Candy hung on. There was no medical reason for her to still be here. Still be on Earth, still alive, still loving Dan.
Every day she asked for him.
The doctors and nurses were amazed she was still clinging to life.
Everyone would say, "What is she waiting for?"
She was waiting for Dan!
Last week Candy took her last breath. Her beautiful heart stopped beating.
When we knew she was gone, we were all so sad but so relieved she was no longer suffering. No longer in pain....
She was gone.
We got the call later that night that Dan had died.
6 hours after Candy took her last breath at home. Dan died in a hospital emergency room 2 miles away from liver failure.
Candy was waiting on Dan.
The most ironic part of all.....
They both died on their wedding anniversary!
Their daughter Dani lost her mother and her father all in one night.
6 hours apart.
I truly believe in my heart that Candy waited on Dan. Her heart knew he would need her where they were going. I believe and all of her family and friends believe that her love for him waited to hold his hand and take him to eternity together.
I write this sobbing.
A more pure love story could not be made up like this. I think love can be as strong as the Heaven's.
Next time I write I want to tell you how my darling husband helped me from his grave. It was like he was guiding me. Helping me. I'm too emotional right now to tell it all but it's a powerful love story too.
Until next time...
Cherish those you love like there's no tomorrow.
I love you all.
Hello Again My Lovely and Beautiful Friends.
Not because I am broke or in debt, I am going back to work.
My husband insured I would be taken care of long into my 90's and beyond.
He simply didn't want me to have to depend on a man for support in any way. I'm happy he did that for me not because of the money but because of the independence and freedom to go and do what I want and need to do. I have several girlfriends that lost their beloved husbands only to lose their homes and lifestyles as well.
The house in Key Largo sold. It was to be mine for a year. I gave it up as soon as I was able to physically get on a plane and manage the move.
It was hard. So many memories there. Beautiful memories of a time when we were happy and healthy.
It's hard to go from being happily married to suddenly single.
Had my husband left me for another woman I could have tried to get him back. Fought for him. Begged, pleaded and worked to keep him close and mine.
He didn't leave me for another woman.
He died.
He left me to save a spot for me at his side in Heaven.
I know he's near me daily. I see him every time the sun rises in the morning. When the Florida wind kicks up and I feel the soft breeze on my face... I know he's there. Beside me.
I fought. I fought hard for him to stay here but God wanted him there.
I begged and pleaded and worked so hard to keep him with me.
I made deals with God. God had other plans for a great man.
Who am I to argue with God?
I bought a new house closer to my son here in Florida. I am keeping my Indiana home and will fly back and forth. Being here has been healing for me.
Anyway, I am doing well.
Not 100% yet but it will come.
I applied to three airlines and am going back to flying. It's my passion. One doesn't work simply because they are broke.
I love to work. Sitting and staring at walls all day gets very old and extremely exhausting. I may be 57 years old but I am far from dead!
I love people and feel I still have plenty to offer this planet so off to work I go.
Getting up in the morning and having a plan is very liberating.
Sure, with all of the money my husband left me, I could shop and lunch with friends all day. Buy exotic cars, travel the world, drip myself in diamonds but that is simply not me.
I love you all and will do videos soon. I miss my YouTube channel but the time just hasn't felt right. It will.
I have found that all things good come in due time when the timing is right.
Love and Peace,
Lana
The old saying is that a widow should not buy anything or sell anything for a year after her husbands death. No major decisions to made within that 365 day exile.
Blah.
So... I tried that for 3 months. It blows!
What? Sit and look at walls? Wear black for months and go to the cemetery? Not smile or chat or laugh?
I did all that too.
It's exhausting and it does nothing more than cement into your skull that your man is gone. It is all a constant reminder of sadness. Don't get me wrong. I am sad. I cry on people.
Oh Lord do I cry on poor unsuspecting people!
I went to see my dentist. I had neglected most everything about myself so it was time. My dentist is also a friend. He entered the exam room with my x-rays in hand, said hello, touched my arm and in 1.3 seconds, I was blubbering all over his scrub-shirt. Not just the pretty tears that fall from your eyes like in movies but the full-on sobbing UGLY cry.
(I may have to switch dentists now I am so embarrassed)
Same with my Priest. My postman. My Veterinarian. The cashier at the grocery...
The list goes on, I am sorry to say.
Hey.. I think I we get a pass when we lose a loved one.
So, back to better news...
I decided to break all of the rules of being a widow.
I always claimed to be a "rule-breaker" so why stop now?
I'm done caring if people in my community judge me for crying too much.
I hear them whispering...
"Oh look, she cries too much. Her black dress is so big on her. She looks awful. Her eyes are red.
She's lost weight. She's aged 10 years."
Oh, Bite Me!
If people have so much to say about YOUR life... That says very little about their own, right?
Words to live by.
I haven't got all the answers on how to act or what to do. I never have! We just do what we can. Life is short. I plan on living each and every day in honor of my husband but to the fullest.
So...
I ran away from home!
It's so liberating. I am going back in a week.
Don't want to but have to...
Some of Henry's old football players from the Denver Broncos and basketball buddies from Purdue are honoring him with a benefit memorial. All proceeds will go to the Purdue Athletic Department in his name. It will be a sad and emotional day but I have my Big Girl Panties all picked out and laid out for that day.
I can DO this and I will.
Oh and I bought a new car. My dream car.
I thought it would make me happy. Things don't make you happy. People do.
I have amazing people in my life.
I am so blessed.
More later.
I Love You.
Hello to all of you that have sent all of the amazing notes and to the ones that left me a Tweet or note here every day, I owe you big-time.
You have no idea how these notes got me thru these last months. I got where I actually looked forward to them. They were a tiny bright spot in an otherwise very dark time.
A thin thread to a different place.
When I was approached to write a book during my husbands treatments, I told the publisher that I wouldn't write about his passing but instead go back. All the way back to my life as a child.
It was a compromise.
I totally dropped the ball on my writings the last 4 - 5 months. My hands were full with caring for the love of my life. Who can write when their heart is being crushed. I stopped everything and devoted every second to my husband.
He is gone.
I cry just thinking of him.
I miss him so much it hurts like a physical pain.
I seem to hang at the cemetery.
I rake and clean and preen and decorate his gravesite.
Somehow it gives me comfort. I had to stop telling family and friends that I go there 3 times a day. Now they look at me funny as if I am loco.
Maybe I am.
It's like going to his place. It's all I have.
Someday soon I will write about it all. The
last months, the beautiful love we had, and his passing.
Right now, I am so raw inside it would come out as rambling jibberish.
Writing clears my thoughts. It's all I have.
Henry died the way he lived... His way.
If someone can die beautifully, he did.
I held him in my arms. He was all I have...
Thursday
9:30 a.m.
Today is Round Two of Chemo.
I have heard from my new found cancer friends that round One of chemo is a breeze.
No side effects. Or at least very few.
It's round Two that will kick your butt from here to Singapore and back.
We have to go to the lab for CBC blood work before radiation and then on to chemo.
A long day ahead. I hope "Debbie" isn't there today but never will I ever sit for 2 hours before an appointment again without letting our presence known even tho we had previously checked in.
Blood Lab
Lab work to see if you are strong enough to take the poison they are about to shoot into your veins like the last space shuttle mission.
Blast off!
30 minutes here and then over to the radiation clinic. My husband says he changed the name once again. It's no longer Faith, Hope and Love....
Nor is it Doom, Death and Destruction but today he calls it
Pain, Suffering and Heartache.
That one sentence made me cry silent tears as I drove him.
Buck up honey... This day is shaping up to be a hard one. As I write this in my iPad I wonder what the new downside of the day will be.
A mystery.
I used to love surprises. Not any more.
10:00 Radiaton
I see my new best friend, Chris.
He looks awful! Pale and weak.
I haven't seen him since last Friday so I gently take his hand and ask if he's doing ok. Dumb question, right?
( I've learned it's not the question that matters but the caring).
Chris's cancer is in his colon but more so his rectum. I can't imagine the position they must put him in to blast him but he told me to use my imagination..... Oh My Ouch!
He has taken the last 3 days off to heal up to brace for his last few days.
He told me the radiation to that delicate area has chewed him up and not in a good way. The radiation has also given him diarrhea. He said it hurts so bad that he cries when he uses the restroom. That part is bad but when he wipes, even gently, parts of his skin comes off in his hand. I just want to rock him and comfort him. Make it end.
But this is curing him, right? His sessions are going to end next week and his cancer is a stage I or II
which is so good for him. Again, I pray he will be ok. Chris is a young man who has a heart of gold and is a treasure. I see the pain in his face and it hurts me.
WHY do I always feel the pain of others? I don't want it.
The pain in my heart is all I can take right now but I absolutely love Chris and wish him well.
Sandy is AWOL. I can't even THINK why she hasn't been in here for days.....
I'll think about that tomorrow....
Tomorrow is Friday and I am going to make that my mantra for today.
Repeat. Tomorrow is Friday. Friday is one day before Saturday and the weekend. Weekends are a reprieve from Radiation, needles, masks, chemo, Cisplatin, and doctors. Two whole days off.
But first. First we have this day ahead of us.
Shake it off, put your head down and get thru it.
It's one more week down.....
PS. I'm just going to add this here but it has no relation to anything.
I just need to write it down :(
I am worried.
The doctors all tell us this can be treated. Treated. No one ever says CURED. I know I am not being positive right now but I'm scared. Really scared. Petrified.
One of the RN's here at the Radiation clinic asked me if I needed anything a week ago and I looked her dead in the eye and said I would like to talk to her. I am a realist. I am a survivor but I need answers. I KNOW she knows the questions I want to ask but she has been avoiding me like the plague lately.
Perhaps I don't want/need answers at all.
Let's just leave that right there. Ok.
I'll think about THAT tomorrow too....
Time to go across campus to the chemo clinic....
I have magazines (OneCentStamp sent me a subscription to Harper's Bazaar) books, my ipad, my macbook, headphones, a book that KarenKupcake sent to me and I even packed a lunch.
This time I KNOW what to expect and what needs to be done. I have my numbing cream and put it on the port spot an hour ago. No more pain from needles the size of whale hooks so he won't feel the pain of that.
This time I got the prescription filled for the anti-puke patch and the IV Emends is ordered by the oncologist.
This time, I am not going to allow anyone to drop the ball on my husband. His pain is MY pain and I REFUSE for him to be hurt anymore than is absolutely necessary.
I'm telling you, seeing someone you love hurt this way is like a physical pain. Maybe worse. When I see my skinny, sweet, sick husband wince in pain I want to do damage to someone.
The blood was drawn and will have been tested by the time we get there to see if he is healthy enough for chemo.
10:30 a.m.
It's time.
Let's Roll.
We arrive on time and whoop-dee-do we only have to wait 35 minutes to get in and we choose a lovely puke-green luxury recliner for the day. We see the same couple from NY that we met here last week. Her husband has the same cancer as Henry but when I ask what Stage it is, they don't know so call over an RN who charts it and declares to them that he is a Stage I or II
No lymph nodes involved and nothing has spread.
Lucky guy.
My husband is Stage IV High Grade 4 with lymph nodes involved. All the lymph nodes in his neck.
*sigh* I'll think about that tomorrow too.
Not now.
They apply the anti-nausea patch and hook up the IV to the port. In goes the anti-nausea drip and the steroids then the
saline flush and then Cisplatin. It's one minute per ounce for the chemo. He's at 90 ounces so 90 minutes to administer that then one more saline flush and we will be out the door.
Total time. 6 hours.
We play games, whisper to each other while holding hands and play "Unchained Melody" on my iPad which was our wedding song. It brings us both to tears but no one notices. A nurse walks by and tells us how cute we are together. We both cry silent tears as we smile inside our hearts. We have always been told that and it makes me happy.
Maybe thru all of this we still have it together?
Yes. We do.
5:00 p.m.
Home
Time to feed Franklin. He hasn't "eaten" all day. His color is once again a dull dark gray. The color of coddled cottage cheese on a hot hot day.
Henry just told me he feels like hurling. I bring a lined new trash can to sit by the bedside.
This may be a really rough evening.
Barf bags thankfully don't bother me. Blood does.
I am used to being puked on so this one I can handle.
He has a triple threat going on so hopefully, for his sake, he won't feel ill.
He has the IV Emends in his system.
He has the new puke patch on his arm.
He has anti-nausea pills to be crushed and put in the tube.
Cross your fingers... This may be a bumpy ride.
I want to write this to all of you:
Thank You again. All of your your notes, the amazing candle site started by FloridaPossum, your beautiful comments, letters of hope and love and especially just for being here.
Most all of you, I have not met but each one of you are now my family. I have never felt so much love and support from anyone as I do from each and every one of you.
I feel you everyday.
I feel you pushing us.
I feel you with us.
I feel your kindness and open hearts.
I feel your well wishes and so does Henry.
I know you are here. I know you care and what more is there? Nothing.
They say you can measure the worth of a person by their friends and how they are loved. I am so rich right now. Not with money or treasures of riches but rich with treasures of FRIENDS and that is WEALTH. I am Blessed and YOU are all my Blessing.
You have a large piece of my heart.
Now I need to go dry my eyes, blow my nose and put on some pink lipstick.
Tomorrow is Friday!
Today ended up being the worst day of all.
Are you all sick of me yet?
I sure am.
I can't even look at myself anymore. A good friend that has been thru something similar told me to get up every day and put on lipstick. Do my hair.
I really don't care anymore.
Weekends are ok but week days are the worst.
Doctor appointments. Tests. Scan. Needles. Yada Yada
The mask we went to have fitted on Friday is done!
Whoop-de-Freakin-Ding Dong.
My husband has played football and basketball with pain so great it would bring a lesser man down. Not him. They'd throw some novocaine into a pulled hamstring or torn ligament in his knee and back into the game he'd go. Three broken noses his Senior Year in college ball. No big deal.
Claustrophobia is another matter all together. That mask freaks him out! The mask is fitted very tightly to your face then clamped down to the table while your arms are in chains to pull your shoulders away from your neck. Seriously, it looks like a Medieval Torture Chamber.
Today: 8:45 a.m. Home.
I give my husband who has never taken a drug in his life 2 mg of Xanax to relieve his anxiety of the mask.
9:15 a.m. The 4th CaT Scan is scheduled with the dreaded mask to calibrate exactly where the radiation beams will go on the neck. Thy say they will salvage what they can. One salivary gland and maybe a slim chance to salvage the taste buds and voice box and his bottom teeth. His throat will be blasted by radioactive beams 5 days a week for 15 minutes a day for 8 weeks.
9:30 a.m. An IV put into place. Time to put on the mask and get the CT Scan. He panics and refuses.
My heart drops. No mask= No treatment. He will have to wear this mask everyday of the week. 5 days a week for 8 weeks. The Xanax is useless. I coax and plead and cry and beg and bargain with him. He has dug in his heels and says No! OMG.
12:00 p.m. I am exhausted. Myself and three nurses have worn ourselves out but we finally, 2.5 hours later convince him to get the scan with the mask. Thank You Jesus! (How kind and amazing there are to take so much time and energy to CARE)
Claustrophobia sounds lame but it can be so debilitating.
3:00 p.m. First consult with the Chemotherapy Oncologist.
The Pathologist Report.
This damn report has dogged me all weekend and I almost want to burn it right there in the padded ugly purple chair and run like the wind while the ugly chair and the report ignite and are never seen again by mankind or the decorator that chose that ugly ass purple chair.
Chemo will begin after the G-Tube and Chest Port for Chemo are surgically installed. One will Feed and the other will fill my husband's veins with deadly chemicals to kill cells in it's path.
The report again. God, I don't even want to write to you what that ugly thing says.
The secretary of our family doctor was right.
(From this date forward, her name will not ever be mentioned in my house or while I breathe air. She seemed to enjoy telling me that news.) I want to poke her eyes out with a spoon.
The Report........................................
My wonderful kind and gentle husband has not ONE but TWO kinds of cancer.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he pulled the very short straw.
We went to tell his 95 year old Mom the bad bad news on Sunday. She at first thought he meant that SHE has cancer (Remember, she does. She has a mass on her lungs but we never told her. Her affairs are in order. At 95 what does it matter really?) It seems that every male in his family has died of cancer. HOW did we not know this before????
He has Stage 4 Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Throat AND a very rare form of very aggressive Large Cell Neuroendrocrine Cancer. Survival rate is slim.
Now we know and now we fight but for what?
75% chance it will return after treatment.
My fight is dimming. His fight is all but gone. I don't even pretend not to cry anymore. I am so raw and scared and quite frankly I worry that he will suffer and then after 4 months of radiation and the chemo he will be seared and burned and poisoned and THEN he will die. I feel hollow. He talks about when he's dead and gone now. Instructing me on what to do when he is...
I once knew a woman in real life that hated my YouTube Channel so much. She told me I had weird and bizarre people that watched my videos and that it was all very revolting to her. She would post about me on gossip sites and called my own brother to get him to make me stop posting videos. She thought all of my viewers were freaks.
Not So. Not even close. I feel sorry for her closed up mind.
I have found that since being on YouTube, some of the most genuine, thoughtful, caring and most of all loving and giving men and women in the world has ever known!
Today, I have cried tears all day long.
Tonight I cry while typing this to all of YOU. You are so strong and steady and I have been sucking the very souls from all of you and your amazing strength and love you have shown to my husband and to me... perfect strangers. I have never been as blessed as I am right now, in a time of sorrow and fear as I am by each and every one of you.
Let me copy a Tweet for you...
@ Here's today's
hug {{HUG}} The first beautiful flower you see on
your path today is from me ;)
That is just ONE example out of the thousands I have received since this began less than 3 weeks ago. Every day I get notes and comments and letters and messages and warm hugs and LOVE from you. You are all angels here on Earth and I love you more than you know. Thank You.
P. S. I saw her flower today as we walked out of the Oncology building. It had the most beautiful bee buzzing around it. Loving it.
I stood there on the green grass of the perfectly manicured lawn and hugged my husband and cried. See, I never ever took much time in a day to stop and LOOK and see the pretty flowers and what God has given me. Given Us. Maybe God needs a warm and gentle, sweet and caring man in Heaven.
Maybe he will let me keep him.
I need him and I need all of you too. xo
I apologize for not posting yesterday. Yesterday was brutal. I took a day off.
I wish Cancer would.
I can't stand that word. It makes me want to rage and pull my hair out and go kick someone right where it hurts. You see, we all go on living our lives in such a bubble of innocence. Sure, I have friends and heard stories of cancer and illness. Who hasn't? But when it comes to visit YOUR house like some unwanted filthy houseguest to wreak havoc and steal your life, then you're changed forever.
Yesterday our office trip to Inner Vision for the PET Scan began at 7:45 am.
Blood work, EKG, Chest xRay, another CT Scan ended at 3:00. 4:00 was the consult with the surgeon for the biopsy on Wed morning surgery.
It's funny, the nurses give YOU the blood to take to the lab be analyzed. They also give YOU a CD that holds your life on a disk. All of your scans, reports and results are on this disk. I wanted to take it home put it in my MacBook and hit "Reject."
Be gone you cancer bastard!
They gave me his 4 vials of blood to take to the lab. I had it sitting right next to me in the passenger seat of my car like a VIP passenger. One 1st class ticket to the lab.
I get it there safely and the tech tells me I didn't have the "Blue-Capped" vial of Blood.
What the hell does that mean?
I have this blood in a sealed bag with red and yellow stickers all over it. I stood there like some confused passenger that ended up in Shanghai when they were supposed to have landed on a beach in Monaco.
I think my mouth was even gapped open in confusion as I stood there at the lab window.
The rude tech said "You didn't bring the Blue Capped Vial of Blood. Go get it! You have to go get it! I need more blood here, lady!"
I felt as tho I had failed everyone. I had one task to do and I couldn't even do that right.
I stood there in the middle of the Medical Arts building in my wrinkled up linen suit and cried.
I completely lost it.
I don't mean tears running down my face, I mean full-blown sobbing and wailing. It wasn't pretty. I can usually hold it together but I even failed at that.
I completely lost it. It took restraint to keep from throwing myself on the marble floors and curl up in a fetal position and cry...
I did finally pull it together, went back to Inner Vision, got the nurse to enter the suite that my husband was getting his juice for the PET Scan, draw more blood and took it back to the lab.
I truly wanted to pull a scene like from the movie "Carrie" and envision all that blood on that rude lab tech dripping down her head and say "Here! Here's your Blue Capped Vial of Radioactive Blood!"
These days I look at my husband and cry.
I thought I was this strong strong woman. Boy, was I wrong. I have been thru some unspeakable things in my life. My childhood could be a really bad Made for TV Movie and I thought it made me like work-horse strong. I thought so many things about myself that I am finding to be horribly wrong.
The thought of what lies ahead for him makes me shudder.
If his prognosis is simply Stage 4 Squamous Carcinoma of the Throat, he is in for some really rough months ahead. If it is worse than that... I can't even imagine it.
Each and every note from all of you has gotten us thru and my husband and I appreciate them and your wonderful offers of Hope and Support more than you could ever know.
I have been given hundreds of perfect stranger's home phone numbers to call and
Offers....
I have had offers from people to come live with them during this.
I have had offers to come here to cook and clean for us.
Offers to do our laundry.
One sweet and wonderful friend has offered to let me call her at 4 a.m. or any time just to weep and she will listen in support.
I have had offers to drive us around to appointments.
I have had offers to take our two dogs until this nightmare is over.
I have had offers to call Doctors in Huston and pull strings for quick entry into the medical system there.
So many offers.
Most importantly, I have had thousands of offers to PRAY.
Prayers from perfect strangers. What amazing people all of you are. I am so Blessed.
Truly Blessed.
Tomorrow is the biopsy surgery. If all goes well, we will have answers and options.
If not, I don't know. The surgeon will put a probe with a camera down his throat. He will look inside his throat lungs, esophagus, stomach etc. They will hopefully get a tube past the cancer in his throat to breath for him during surgery. If the cancer has blocked that tiny hole then they will have to do a tracheotomy which is cut a hole in his throat to allow him to breath thru. I pray it all goes well.
Michael douglas went thru this and seems to be in remission. I am so Thankful for that.
His beautiful wife, Catherine Zeta Jones... She ended up in the looney bin. I can see why!
(I wonder if she ever dropped the ball on the Blue-Capped Vial of Blood?)
Now that we have done what we were ordered to do by the powers that be, our doctor, we sit and we wait. Why am I adding myself to this equation? Because I can. When a loved one gets sick, it effects everyone not just the ill one so I suppose I'm allowed to say I am a part of it all even tho I don't want to be. I am on the outside looking in. blah blah blah.
The doctor ordered CT Scans and blood work and clinical exams but we have been at this almost a week now and do we know what is going on any more than we did on Day 1 ? NO!
As women, we are programmed to fix things. Fight the things that hurt those we love.
What am I fighting here?
I haven't got a clue! That is the worst, most helpless feeling ever! I have my sleeves rolled up, my fierce fighting face on and here I sit....
I cancelled my entire life not knowing what to do next.
I had a court case today at 2:00 but was in the doctor's office. Again. I was to fly to Tampa yesterday but was too worried to leave. My husband says he wants to buy me a new car. Am I excited by that? No. We have a wedding to go to on Saturday. Do we go? Do we kick up our heels and dance and try to ignore this big black elephant that is sitting on top of us?
I see this dark black hole in our lives and it is called our FUTURE? Am I being dramatic? Probably.
Everything. I mean every little thing is riding on the outcome of these tests.
Family, friends, the people that are a part of our lives want answers. How is he? What do the doctors say?
He's ..... I'll be damned if I know.
The lumps on his neck are growing. What was once 3 lumps is now 5 lumps. What was once the size of a lime is now the size of a larger lime. The bloody noses have all but stopped. He still coughs up small amounts of blood but it's not as scary as it used to be. His voice is getting worse and his difficulty swallowing is an issue that is getting more to be concerned about daily and what are we doing about it?
NOTHING!!!!!
I want to cuss and poke someone right in the nose!
Ok, deep breath.
The weekend is coming and what will we do about it? Again, nothing. Get up each day and do what we have been doing.
Here is my husbands quote of the week.
"Life's journey is not to arrive at your grave safely in a well preserved body but to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting
"Holy Shit!... What a Ride!"
I like his style and told him, "Let's fly to Pompeii. Let's spend the next 3 days in Australia.
Let's go do something really crazy."
Where is he right now? Back at work. At his desk putting out fires and solving problems.
I want to make a video. Yeah, one about how I do my hair.
It seems so lame so I won't.
Ok, so usually my posts are full of fun and laughs but today I just felt the need to write about something so scary but so important.
I'll never forget the day one of my very best friends in the world, Candy was diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer. She had told me that she was going in for a routine Mammogram after finding a tiny lump.
No big deal, right?
She was 36.
The doctor called her into his office 3 days later for a consult. We were all there with her. How could we not be? We have been friends since I was 14 years old.
She is like a sister to me!
When he told her that she had a very aggressive type of breast cancer and a radical mastectomy was required, we were all in shock, that is except Candy. She smiled thru it all and held our hands and we left in a cloud of shock and for me total despair.
Cancer at 36?
Why Candy?
I know of women that are NOT sweet, NOT kind, NOT caring like she is, why not THEM?
The surgery was scheduled for the end of the following week.
I went home and cried for days. She was so strong. I was not.
An entire bevy of us arrived with her at the hospital. She was told to gown and where to go. All of us girls were surrounding her hospital bed right before they were to wheel her in for the procedure.
Someone, I'm not sure to this day who, suggested we all pray.
We began..."Please God be with Candy......"
That's as far as it got before we were all wailing and sobbing and broken down in tears. All of us crying .... then Candy's sweet voice...
"Please God be with these wonderful friends of mine and keep them strong.
You see, I need them.
I borrow their clothes."
All was so quiet. No one was even breathing. Then, in a flash we all broke up into fits of laughter.
No tears. No more crying. Candy was going to be fine.
Here she was the one lying so vulnerable and small in that hospital gurney and she was comforting US!
She had the procedure and went home that day.
I took a covered dish to her house that evening and guess what? She was out on the back of a motorcycle! WHAT?
Three weeks later they scheduled the first of a six month round of Chemo. This was the first I saw how hard this was going to be for my dear friend.
She told me that losing her breast was no big deal.
Her boob had Never hugged her kids.
Her boob had Never drove her car.
Her boob had Never gazed up at the stars in the sky.
Losing her hair was going to be the hard part. We would sit outside and just the lightest breeze would make her long beautiful hair blow away in a cloud. I could see how much this hurt her.
She shaved her head and then just simply rocked headscarves and wigs. She was beautiful inside and out. Hair or no hair.
It's been over 20 years and Candy is Cancer Free.
Thanks to early detection and a willingness to follow her doctors orders, she survived.
Breast Cancer is survivable.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I Thank God it has had a light shown on this disease.
I go on Friday for my annual Mammogram and screening.
I hope that all of you over 40 or with a history of Breast Cancer in your family, schedule a Mammogram this month. It could save your life!
I could only hope to ever be as strong as my dear friend. She gives me hope everyday ~ in Every Thing.
Besides, she borrows my clothes!
I ℒℴѵℯ You All!
