Since 2021 was a rough year, I decorated for Christmas early to lighten the mood a bit. I put the trees up the weekend after Halloween. I completed my Christmas shopping by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. The plan was to enjoy the holidays without any stress. Most of the presents were wrapped and under the tree. We even went to Mike’s Farm the day after Thanksgiving to kick the season off right! The stage was set for the best Christmas yet. Then, just like that, my life changed forever.
Just when you think you have it all together…
Gary, my husband, started not feeling well the weekend after Thanksgiving. He took an at home COVID test on November 29th and it was positive. The next day he was jaundice and weak and I talked him into going to the ER. He checked himself out against medical advice because of poor care and I was could not be with him to advocate for him. He continued to be sick and I talked him into letting me take him to REX Hospital ER. After many tests and having a CT scan, the Dr. called me into the ER to be with him. The ER doctor told us Gary had metastatic cancer of the liver, origin unknown. He wasn’t going to be healing from the COVID that we thought was the cause of his sudden jaundice. He wasn’t sick. He was dying of liver failure from a cancer we did not know existed until just at that moment.
Cancer sucks.
Still in shock from the diagnosis, we were admitted to the hospital. Seven days of testing and bad news after bad news ensued. In that seven days, the prognosis changed from 6 months to live (possibly more with chemotherapy) to being discharged into hospice care. Gary was discharged on December 9th. My husband died on December 23rd. He didn’t make it to Christmas. He didn’t make it to our 21st anniversary on January 3rd. I buried my husband on December 30th at 10am.
It means forever and that’s a mighty long time…
prince and the revolution, “Let’s go crazy”
The whole idea of this blog was really about death. 5 years is one of my favorite Bowie tunes, but it is also the threshold of time the medical community celebrates “survival” from cancer. I wanted to journal my way through my emotions and feelings in this time from my cancer diagnosis. I wanted to make my thoughts and opinions public knowledge. I wanted to write and leave something behind somehow. A slice of me to live forever on the internets of yore. It was MY death I was sort of preparing for. I never, ever thought I’d be here. Alone. Without my partner, without my children’s father, without my forever person. One of the main comforts I found when contemplating my own possible death was not having to grieve the ones I love. Never having to see them suffer, never having to go on without them. I always imagined that to be a pain that I couldn’t bear.
It turns out that it is actually way worse than I ever imagined it could be.
