I have directly correlated my lack of blog posts to my Son mastering his walking.
He tears my whole house apart approximately 6 times throughout the course of the day, and after all that, I can barely shower, let alone be funny and articulate.
But anyways, sorry again, and thanks to all of you who kicked my ass back in front of the keyboard.
So we'll finish cataloguing 2012, starting in July.
Mike was having some abdominal pain, enough to double him over on occasion. He took himself into the hospital, where a battery of tests were performed. The doctors suspected an abscess on his colon, but due to a clerical issue, the file was never passed on to the medical data base thingy. So no one knew he had this thing when he started his incredibly aggressive chemotherapy.
August 2012....
Mike starts his super aggressive chemotherapy regimen. The rounds are three weeks long starting with an IV, followed by 2 weeks of pills. Certain health regions don't even cover this treatment it's so expensive. As a now 7 month pregnant woman, the oncologists recommended I stay very far away from Mike if he is sick, as the chemo was so toxic it could harm the baby. Imagine your newlywed husband, sick from chemo, heaving in the washroom, and you can't go near him or risk the health of your unborn son. It was pretty awful.
September 2012....
Mike continues his treatments, and is sick all the time. The mysterious pain attacks him, rendering him immobile for hours at a time. All he wants to do is sleep. I still can't go near him when he's sick, and I have to sit and hear him, unable to help. Lots of people talk about going through the stages of grief when you deal with something like this. I did the denial thing for about a week, hoping that this was all some sort of horrible mistake. My husband was 27! The average age for colon cancer is 65, so it must be a mistake!
I felt pretty isolated in September, trying to be brave for Mike, and trying to hide my excitement about the baby. I felt like me being pregnant, bringing our first child into the world and all the worries and joys that go along with it were me being selfish. How could I be happy at a time like this? I mean, people have babies all the time right? That's nothing out of the ordinary. I should be able to focus my energy and try to be there for my cancer patient husband. Forget that insecurity or pain from carrying our baby, the sleepless nights and the sheer stress of everything we were going through riding on my shoulders, I should be focused on Mike, because he has Cancer. Let me tell you, the guilt of those thoughts still ring through my brain to this day, and it almost killed me.
October 2012...
Mikes chemotherapy serendipitously lands right on my due date, so the nurses rush him through his treatment so he can come home and wait with me. After having a large McDonald's lunch (forget that Castor oil myth, try a big mac to induce labour!) I began having contractions around 11 pm. By 230 am I had gotten up and started timing them. In between contractions I packed Mike a lunch kit full of snacks, so he wouldn't forget to eat and get sick while I was in labour.
At 623 pm, October 11, 2012, we welcomed Jacob into the world. I was elated, and so happy that this Cancer bullshit could leave us alone for the birth of our son.
This is where I slipped into the anger stage of grieving.
Mike was so tired after his chemo the day before, he slept and slept and slept the first night in the hospital. I had to have a C-section, so was pretty immobile, and could have used his help. But his body was so drained I had to do the parenting by myself, essentially cut in half and with dangerously low blood pressure.
This continued for a few weeks afterward, I felt like he was shirking his daddy duties, and I had to pick up the slack. Breastfeeding was a disaster, as I needed his help to position the baby, but he was so sick and tired, plus the pain in his gut kept getting worse, so help was spotty at best.
I felt angry, abandoned, and seriously thought he was jealous of the baby.
November 2012...
My anger has turned into guilt fuelled resentment, layered with more guilt for feeling that way, and another layer of guilt for not being a better wife, person etc.
I mean, who gets mad at a guy with Cancer?
Terrible people like me I thought.
I ate alot in November, an epic amount to try and smother my pain and insecurities.
Mike goes in complaining of this terrible pain in his belly for 3 rounds of chemo, nine weeks, and they send him home with ex-lax and a pat on the head, as his blood work showed no issues. He finally spikes a fever, and they rush him to the hospital. He is diagnosed with an abscess (sound familiar?) and they try a few treatments.
Seeing my husband shivering in septic shock definitely makes my top ten crap moments of all time.
He would spend a month in the hospital, undergoing another major surgery to eliminate the abscess and fight the infection. I spent the whole of this season in the depressed stage of grief, crying every time I left my newborn with my Mother in Law to visit my husband in the Hospital. I cried in the shower, I cried while feeding my son, I cried while getting dressed. I'm sure I looked like hell the entire month.
December 2012...
5 days before Christmas, Mike is able to come home. I am now not only responsible for a newborn, but my husbands IV nutrition, and the dressing of his wound, which can take upwards of an hour to change. But he's home and we are back together again.
I know that this is a pretty heavy subject, and I'm sorry for having to write it, when I can brighten your day with a funny anecdote instead.
I promise the next post will be just that, but as I stated before, this is the whole reason I started this blog, this journey to run a race,which has become so much more for me.
I wouldn't wish what happened to my family on my worst enemy, and I certainly don't want my children to have to go through it.
I just needed to write this all down so I could go back and remind myself why I continue to put one foot in front of the other every time I lace up my running shoes.
I want to raise the money to stop this shit from happening to anyone else.
