One Year Ago Today & One Year Cancer Free

A year ago today my love was going through his first cancer surgery, just two weeks after finding a big mass via scope. This was 3 months after countless ER visits, 6 cat-scans and almost dying from 2 deep vein thrombosis clots that lodged in both lungs which is when he was in intensive care for 3 days and his survival rate was 20%!

He's had 3 more of these surgeries since where the surgeon scooped out half of his bladder like a melon but this 1st time actually went so deep it perforated his bladder! It was a looonngggg day and night...15 hours in the hospital! He was home that same night but with a catheter and I had to stay up all night emptying the bag and watching for the size of clots coming out...the next day we were getting the catheter out and that night we were back in the ER with very scary and awful excessive bleeding, because of this for following surgeries he was kept overnight thankfully!

Then it was the torturous wait for biopsy results. We've done this process 4 times since. At this time we didn't know it was a highly aggressive cancer, "A Killer" as the doctor put it. We got that news the day after his 44th birthday, 2.5 weeks later!

As you might only imagine it's been an exhaustive time but he's beautifully and officially 1 year cancer free now. But of course for us the clock restarts every single time a scope is coming up or every time we wait for biopsies.  Every time he has a new pain we panic the cancer is back. 

That will be life now, panicking, being afraid...that's what cancer does to you, it instills endless fear, it snatches away your lightness of heart, it smothers any kind of joyful naivety that the bad things won't happen to you.

I'm surprised by how fast the year has flown by, but at least that means that the worst year of both of our lives has flown by too! 

He was my hero before all this, for his beautiful tenacious heart. But now he's also my warrior beast, I've seen him go through so much bone chilling immense amounts of pain, suffering and fear with more grace, kindness and toughness then I've ever seen before in my life. I love you Jonathan Peterson aka @deyfennslayd.

A Year Ago Today

 It was a year ago exactly today that our world was turned upside down in what's feeling like a very permanent way even though he's now 11 months concer free!  My gut was telling me something was wrong weeks before when we were in and out of the hospital due to a foot injury that lead to blood clots that lead to him almost dying in the Critical Care Unit and all of that eventually lead to the discovery of a tumor but only after ALOT of things just kept happening to land him back in the ER!..the doctors missed this tumor again and again...Thank goodness for a random ER doctor that said "hmmm something is up here, you shouldn't have blood in your urine, lets send you for a bladder scope".   We want to find this ER doctor and somehow get a message to him to thank him for being on the ball and investigatory instead of just blowing the blood off as though it was nothing like our own family Dr. Elena Ayoub-Kolb did!

This day a year ago, my heart was pounding away in my throat as I waited in the waiting room as my honey got his scope.  I knew something was wrong the second the nurse came to get me telling me that 'my husband has had a bad scare and needed me'.  I was lead into the back to the surgeons office where I found my amazing Jonathan, usually solid as a rock no matter what, shaking like I've never seen him shake before & as I knelt down to comfort him, the doctor instantly put his hand on my shoulder...it was then that I knew we were in trouble...

Like I said, he's 11 months cancer free now...it's been a hell of a battle, a hell of a year with countless more ER visits after the discovery of the cancer, 4 big surgeries, 12 treatments, many scopes and almost 20 nights in the hospital etc etc.  Life hasn't fully uprighted yet honestly though, cause we're not out of the woods entirely yet and well I just don't know if it ever does once cancer has swooped into your life!  But I do know one thing, I have never ever been prouder of being this amazing man's partner in everything.

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!

Awesome News

OOHHHHH MYYY GOODNESS everyone

Ahhhhhhhh.

We thought we'd have to wait until the 19th for the pathology report from Jonathan's 3rd resection

but Jonathan's surgeon called us yesterday afternoon

and for whatever reason the pathology report took only 4 days instead of the usual 2 weeks

and I answered the phone for a private number which I hardly ever do...

and it was his surgeon calling to say there is NO SIGN OF THE CANCER WHATSOEVER...

he doesn't even have to get more BCG treatments at this point.

Just another scope in 3 months (for the next two-five years).

The re-occurrence rate is now less than 10%.

That's still a scary number when your talking about cancer but we're taking this as a win.

This is amazing news but it hasn't sunk in yet, I think we're just too exhausted.

The doctor did say that his immune system is completely shot & he basically doesn't have one now and that it will take some time to build up again, and the two pulmonary embolisms take up

to 2 years to be reabsorbed back into the body so we must keep being super vigilant about Covid19.

But we can go back to life now without that double edge knife of fear constantly cutting into us.

We're going to have an awesome summer even if we have to continue to self-isolate

and just putter around the yard & house with the buns and each other...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Yayyyyyyy.