Say It Isn't True

Say It Isn't True

So much has changed since my last post.  So very much.  After almost 7 years of struggling with cancer and fighting to the very end, my husband passed away on October 31, 2014.  Within a week of his death, it was my turn to be diagnosed with Stage 4 Ovarian cancer.  Was it even possible?  I had longed for peace in my life after the years of struggling to care for my husband. There had to be a mistake!

It felt like a cruel joke.  Impossible to comprehend, yet there I was, so incredibly sick that within a week I had gone from looking after my husband, to a hospital bed in the Palliative Care ward being wheeled about because I could no longer walk.  Nights filled with terror gasping for breath because my abdomen was so distended I couldn't breathe.  It seemed I was always panicking and constantly bewildered.  Dear God, what was happening to me?  I just wanted to go home...to not hear the word 'palliative' over and over, and so I was over the moon happy when a few weeks later I was permitted to return home and plans were made to begin chemotherapy treatments.

On the day of my first treatment it was me, not my husband, sitting in the chair in the Cancer Clinic  getting ready for my first chemotherapy treatment.  No time to mourn or to even think about my loss.  I was fighting for my own life not knowing if I was going to survive for days, let alone weeks or months.  It was all so incredibly surreal....even as my hair began to fall out it continued to feel like a bad dream.

Then the chemotherapy began to be work.  I was able to leave the wheelchair and walk on my own and slowly I began to feel more like 'me'.  In time I noticed that my grandchildren didn't look at me with confusion or fear in their eyes any longer and were more comfortable approaching me.  I was now well enough to respond to them as the grandma they knew.  They had recently lost their Grandfather, yet I was now entertaining the thought that perhaps they weren't going to lose me also...at least not yet.

So here we are, it's the first week of July 2015 and I am almost at the end of my first line of treatments.....only one more to go.  Next there will be surgery on July 23rd for a hysterectomy and removal of as much cancer as can be safely taken out.  I know that every procedure has been planned to provide me with more time.  Good days of feeling well.  I want to enjoy each and every single day doing the things I love with the people I love, because I believe
life really is good.