I hope that this post is seen in a positive light, I want this to be a happy space that can be uplifting to others but I know that people are going to take or interpret things how they want especially when my tone is left up to the readers so if you are at all confused, try to read this in a positive and enlightened tone…. here it goes…
I’ve had this post have typed for about a month now and for some reason have been stuck. I haven’t talked much about Morgan’s cancer on this blog. I may have mentioned it once or twice but hardly at all before we posted his open letter to cancer. Quite honestly, I was blown away with the positive response. I guess I didn’t post about it because I don’t like to dwell on things that are well… crappy and most of all I didn’t want anyone to think I needed pity. I firmly believe we are all dealt different hands in life and its how we play them that matters. Although it was never anticipated, Morgan was dealt the cancer card and when we got married, my cards and his cards became our cards. (If you ask me, I think that is part of the perks of being married.)
This post was inspired from a little hic – up we had about a month ago. Morgan had had some occasional stomach pains but this time it was much worse. The thing about cancer and chemo is that it does some pretty crazy things to your body. Random aches, pain and numbness without warning are super common in our house. Whenever Morgan tells me he has an ache, immediately, I ask “is it cancer ache or just normal.”
The Sunday Morgan came to me letting me know that his stomach pains were not going away, his response to my usual question was hesitant and slightly nervous… “well, its kind of like before I got diagnosed”…. Immediately my stomach dropped.
Well, we got Morgan comfortable in bed with a hot pack and some medicine and I had to keep telling myself over and over “everything is going to be okay”. The next Monday we got him the next available appointment with his doctor a few days later and then the waiting game began. ( I’ve come to realize, that’s a huge part of cancer … waiting.)
To make a long story short Morgan met with his doctor and we are all in the clear. In fact, he said at this point, the chances of it coming back are near 1% **sigh of relief**. He took some tests just to make sure and we got no news ( no news is good news). So this is all happy. Its so so good and we are so glad that this is how it all turned out. It could have been much worse, it could have been all those crazy things that went through my head when Morgan told me that he was feeling something similar to when he was diagnosed. But it wasn’t and for that, I am grateful.
The crazy part of this entire “scare” is that this is our normal. It shouldn’t be normal. We should be having baby scares not cancer scares. I realized that our normal is not even close to being normal. Wondering if a life threatening disease has returned and is plaguing my husbands body every time he has back aches, asking “ like a cancer pain?” every time he feels a little off or sore, and praying we don’t get a call from the Dr. when he gets his blood drawn.
I am in no way complaining but I would be lying if I didn’t say at times it gets frustrating. I knew 100% what we were getting into when we got married and I have absolutely no regrets but this last month made me realize that we are never really going to be cancer free. Morgan and our kids will always have to check that box“history of cancer” when filling out their medical history. Morgan will probably be asked “like cancer hurt or normal hurt” for the rest of his life and every time I hear a story of a wife losing her husband to this horrid disease, Ill always feel a twinge of dread and say a prayer in my heart “please don’t ever let that be me”.
But while we will never be cancer free, we will have that looming past following us no matter where we go, it wont haunt us.
Because we are never really cancer free, we know what its like to be scared. To be truly truly scared. Because we are cancer free, when the A/C goes out, we know that there could be much worse and we are so grateful that it is just an A/C. Because we are never cancer free, we are able to let things go, we don’t sweat the small stuff and realize that there is so much not worth fighting for. Being cancer free wouldn’t have given us the perspective that we have now. We realize that life is fleeting, that moments together are precious and that whatever may come, there are people out there that have it much much worse.
As crappy as it is, I don’t want to be cancer free, I don’t want to forget it. I want to remember how terrifying it was to hear Morgan has cancer and how broken I was inside trying to fathom what I would do if things took a turn for the worse, I want to remember how grateful I was to know that he was safe, that he was going to be healthy and that we are together forever. Being cancer free would mean I would have never been taught to value life, how to find daily peace, count our blessings and cherish our marriage in the way that I do now. Although it’s the worst and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, we will never really be cancer free and that is okay.
