Cancer Bruised

The doctors words are still echoing in my ears & heart,

both from nine months ago when we were stunned still to hear

"well I am very glad we found this thing when we did because this is a monster, this kind is a killer.."
and also from just a few weeks ago when we heard back

from the pathology 3 weeks earlier than expected!

"I know we hit this thing hard & fast right from the start &

that you've been through hell but I am happy to tell you that it was worth it....".

Apparently if this doctor hadn't of found it when he did, Jonathan would not be here within the year.

We came so close to loosing each other.

First when he was in the critical care with two pulmonary embolisms

where his chance of surviving one was apparently something like 30%, let alone with 2 of them!

and than with the cancer...that's been hard for me to process and face the reality of.

We are beyond ecstatic with the recent good news but we are honestly feeling numb...

all of it, every single minute is going to take awhile to let go of.

I think we've had to steel our hearts so completely just to cope with everything we've been through.

It's going to take some work & time to soften back up.

A therapist friend told me that we have post traumatic stress syndrome

from everything we've gone through these past 9 months.

We are also not entirely out of the woods yet either so I think that's part of it,

there's still a 10% re-occurrence rate, yes, that's a low number but with this monster it's still scary. 

These last several months traversing life with cancer & it's countless hospital visits, surgeries, treatments, scopes & all the fucken waiting for results will age even the most robust of souls....

he's gotten greyer, my wrinkles have gotten wrinkles...he's lost weight, I've put on weight...

the exhaustion has been systematic to say the least and it's not like we get to be done.

We remain vigilant with scopes every three months for the next 2-5 years but

we're only considered out of the woods in another 10-15 years apparently with this kind of cancer.

And Covid19 is still a huge danger as the doctor explained that Jonathan basically has

no immune system right now and building it back from something like this takes a really long time.

The clots are still present also,

(there's been permanent damage to the vein walls & valve in his leg from the deep vein thrombosis)

and the 2 clots deep in his lungs on top of chronic asthma are a huge danger in regards to the virus.

I think the thing is that cancer changes you...let alone cancer during a worldwide pandemic,

it's changed me anyhow, I won't speak for my honey.

It's brought to light a lot of things I need to deal with, like seeing who was really there for us,

seeing who came to the hospital, who bothered to help us out when we were so insanely exhausted, who bothered to reach out & call & ask how things were going, who checked in with us & who just gave me a punch of the shoulder with something flippant like 'Oh don't worry about it, he'll be fine'.

All of it's battered & bruised my heart up quite a bit.

and it's like this great news is floating on the top of everything,

that's the only way I describe it, like it's not sunk in yet, almost like we don't fully trust it!

It will sink in because we are so relieved

but at the same time it's going to take time to trust life again!