PAGE 9
This blog is so important to share with you as I want to tell you about how my having Cancer affected my family.
My husband, Craig and my two Children, Tayla, my daughter and Jarrett, my son.
My husband was my ROCK!
He faced this disease with such strength and determination and just stepped up to face it HEAD ON!
I remember his words to me just after I was diagnosed
"Babe, we are going to treat this like a bad cold"
He was not making light of the fact that I had Cancer but used that idea to maintain perspective and not allow the fear of loosing me to overwhelm him.
From the start, Craig took total control of everything medical.
He dealt with all the doctors and medication.
Managed all the information that was being thrown at us from every direction , processed and made sense of it which enabled us to make the decisions together that would make the difference between Life or Death.
He was as petrified as I was but hid it from me by being brave and confident.
I actually don't know how he maintained this !
He took me to treatment every morning, holding my hand on the way in and holding me up on the way out.
His employers were very understanding and supportive during this time.
He settled me down at home after all the vomiting every day before going to work and dealing with all that additional stress.
He handled all the bills that were flying in from doctors, specialists and hospitals,
He had my medication on a schedule and knew exactly what had to be taken when and what it was for. If I had any side effects, he discussed this with the doctors immediately.
He had found a woman, Jane, who made home made organic soups. Craig had told Jane that I could not eat solid foods so every few days, Jane would deliver fresh soups and put a beautiful rose on top of the punnet for me.
Small gestures like that meant so much when I was feeling so beaten down,
Today we are all good friends!
Craig would blend my fresh juices for me and sit with me while I struggled to get it down, encouraging me all the way to fight through the pain....
and..
the most incredible gesture of love was....
I had 5 doses of morphine per day and the last dose was due every night at 2a.m.
Craig would prepare the liquid morphine in a syringe each night, set his alarm and get up to walk around to my side of the bed, squirt the dose into my mouth and gently tell me to go back to sleep.
All this while trying to maintain the emotional well being of the children, my mother and himself!
He was under tremendous emotional strain watching me suffer and being so helpless to do anything about it ,
YET...
NOT ONCE, did he show anger or frustration at the situation he found himself in or direct it at me.
I admire him so much for that!
His emotional release was meeting with his friends after work ,at our local pub here in the village, to talk not about himself, but as they all told me afterwards, how
" He used to break down sharing with them how much he loved me, how brave I was and how much it hurt him to watch me suffer."
He was so grateful to all his friends for being there for him!
Craig and I can understand now how an emotional experience like this can tear a marriage apart but with us .....IT WAS THE OPPOSITE!
This has brought us even closer and that was because we talked our way through this with each other.
We were REAL with one another about our feelings and especially our fears.
BUT..
NOT ONCE DID I EVER SAY " I WANT TO DIE" no matter how tough it got.... because I knew that would break his spirit and would hurt him beyond belief.
If we had hidden away from discussing the fear of loosing each other we would have grown apart.
We cried together A LOT!
It was also so important for him to know that ..
I HAD NO INTENTION OF GIVING UP and for me to know .....
THAT HE WAS NOT GIVING UP ON ME!
So together, we just kept on giving each other the strength throughout the whole experience.
We had to face a very difficult issue together, and that was, "the updating of my will."
Under normal circumstances that is not a comfortable issue to deal with because you are facing the possibility of your mortality ...but it was so much more emotional and heart wrenching as this was a REALITY for me.
We both felt so torn emotionally and it I knew it broke his heart putting me though this!.... It was soul destroying acknowledging on paper that I was preparing to DIE when in reality I was fighting so hard to LIVE!
I am so proud to have this man beside me in life, as I know, that no matter what life throws at us.... after surviving Cancer...... we can face it together!
My Next Blog: The Effect on my Children
Please feel free to comment or e-mail me.
No comments:
Post a Comment