I'm so sorry I haven't written in a while, the whole month of August has seemed to slip through my fingers.
I've started about 3 different posts, and I can't seem to finish them.
I think it has to do with me going back to work in a month.
Its made me reflect on the past year and a half,and all the craziness its brought.
Ultimately this is the reason I'm even writing this, and why I started running in the first place.
We'll start in May of 2011...
Mikes dad Bob, had just passed away. It rocked my husband, my Mother in Law, and our whole family. It was very sudden, and left us with a big whole in our hearts.
We were just a few months into our engagement, and the wedding was in September. We both considered calling the whole thing off and going to a Justice of the Peace, but instead we soldiered on, and honoured Dad in our wedding. This is when Mikes symptoms began.
He would be in considerable pain going to the washroom, certain foods really did a number on him, and he would occasionally bleed. Having a family history of intestinal issues, Mike knew it was important to figure out what this was, so he could manage it.
We found a new family doctor in November, and he ran a gamut of tests, but always told Mike he thought it would just turn out to be irritable bowel syndrome. Mike pushed and pushed, insisting it was more than that. Finally, just to shut him up ( I assume) the doctor sent him for another test. This one came back positive for blood, and Mike was referred to a surgeon for more tests.
January 2012...
I hadn't been feeling very well, and I suspected I was pregnant. When a few drugstore tests came back with strong positives, I bought a tiny little tshirt, and presented it to Mike at work. We were going to have a baby! His belly issues were forgotten, and we celebrated the beginning of our new family.
I was super sick the whole first trimester, and when the Surgeon called and made an appointment to see Mike and do more tests, I wasn't well enough to go. The Surgeon also didn't think it was anything too serious, but scheduled a colonoscopy to be sure. Mike had his colonoscopy on April 25th, while I went to tell my grandma about her great grand child. The Surgeon said he had found some strange tissue, but would probably turn out to be something routine, he wasn't worried at all.
May 2012....
We got a call on a Friday morning from the surgeons office, asking us to come in ASAP, instead of on Monday. We asked if everything was okay, and the receptionist told us that the Surgeon's wife was in labour. Assuming that was the reason for the urgency, we told them we'd be in on Monday, and not to worry about it. I cant even remember what we did that weekend, the last blissfully ignorant weekend of our lives, but knowing us, we went to Walmart. lol
Monday came, and armed with our iced caps and the belief that all the Doctors were probably right, and it was just some silly little thing, we went to see the Surgeon. We were immediately whisked past the waiting room, and the Surgeon came in right away.
I used to smoke, so after seeing the cigarette packages for years, indicating that they cause cancer, I knew exactly what was involved when the Surgeon said the word 'Carcinoma', while talking about Mikes test results. My husband didn't say too much, but being hormonal and 5 months pregnant, my world had just crashed around my feet, and I wept.
I wept for my husband, having this terrible ugly thing invade his 27 year old body. I wept for my unborn son, and hoped that this cancer wouldn't deprive him of a father before he took his first breath. I wept for myself, because I had just rediscovered the love of my life, we had started this beautiful family, and I didn't want to have to do it alone. I wept for my mother in law, who just lost her husband, and was faced with the possibility of losing her only son to a disease that she herself had been fighting for years.
June 2012...
Mike was fast tracked into surgery a month after his diagnosis, and it was a full, scary month. Everyone always says they'll do a will just in case,but to sit in the room and make plans for a future with out your husband, with the real possibility of it looming over you, is entirely different.
The morning Mike went in, I told him he had promised me 61 years together in his Valentines card, and I wasn't accepting excuses today, so he'd better wake up in 3 hours. Then I made some jokes about his sexy circulation stockings, and he was wheeled into surgery. I haven't been that scared in my whole life. They told me to expect about 3 hours in surgery, and after the third hour, he still wasn't out yet. I was tired, hungry and completely on edge, thinking the very worst. I looked outside and saw about 15 butterflies, right up against the window, and thought about what a beautiful day it was,and how unfair it was that Mike had to do this. After 5 gruelling hours,the Surgeon finally came out, and let us know that Mike was OK. They had discovered the tumour was much bigger than they had seen on the scans, and they had to get it all. Mike had made it out, and he was going to his room.
I spent as much time as I could at the hospital with him, until my own doctor told me to get some rest, or it would hurt the baby. I took all my vacation to be with him, and took him to all his appointments when he got out of the hospital. I just wanted to be with him all the time, making sure I spent every possible minute with my husband and best friend.
This is only the first half of our story.
