It’s been one year since Andy, my husband, came home from a doctor’s appointment and said the words “I have cancer“.
In the moments that followed my heart went to a very dark place, fear and the unknown took over. This is someone I love beyond words and that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. I feared losing him. It would take many days for us to realize that his testicular cancer diagnosis wasn’t a death sentence because it was caught early (and with many cancers, early detection is so important!)
Surgery, chemotherapy, blood tests, scans, X-Rays, appointment after appointment would consume our next many months. Surrounded by family and friends, we tackled care giving, parenting and recovery as a village. We were blessed.
When I think about that time, but a short year ago, it’s easy to go back to the dark places. I still will burst into random tears unexpectedly. My heart sinks every time I hear about cancer, families being affected or how his recovery could have been so much worse.
As he’s been home recovering we have celebrated life together. The kids forget why he’s home but are happy to have him. At times I realize that our oldest does remember sometimes. When Andy has a band aid now, he asks if he’s sick, or if he’ll feel better ‘after Christmas’ (Andy’s chemo ended the week of Christmas, and we kept telling him he would feel better after Christmas).
But here we are. I type this as they kids sit with him on the couch on a beautiful morning. Surprisingly, we laughed a lot. That’s how we deal is with kindness and laughter. We are eternally grateful to the people in our lives who helped make each day a little bit easier.
And now we get to look at the future. Sure, he will have tests and scans going forward but we have every reason to believe that he will tick the ‘cured’ box.
One year later and we are living life. Together. In sickness and in health indeed….
“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” — Jack Layton
