"Strength"

You may have noticed that a lot of people comment about how "strong" I seem to be. Really, I'm not much different than most people. I'm just playing the cards that I was dealt in the best way that I know how. I cry and I sob and I ask, "why me?," and I really ask, "why Jeff?" But guess what? There are no answers to those questions, and it does me no good to sit and contemplate them.

Back in July after Jeff was released from the hospital after his first round of "Relapse #2 Chemo", I hit a very low point. I felt like I could not move...like I couldn't possibly go on for another day. I didn't know how I would attend one more Day Hospital visit, or watch Jeff get one more biopsy taken from his bone, or his lung, or skin, or his where-ever. I did not want to hear the doctor say that it would be reasonable for Jeff to forgo treatment and go on a vacation in the South Pacific before he gets too ill....before palliative treatments would have to start. (We did hear those exact sentiments from his doctor back in July, after finding out the disease had infiltrated his spinal fluid. Jeff decided that giving up was not an option, regardless of the odds. Despite my mantra that Jeff was a lover, not a fighter, he fought like hell to the bitter end.)

To combat this near depression, I started coming home every week to work and take a break from hospital life. I didn't like leaving Jeff, because I knew that he preferred JD and me to be there, but I wasn't going to do much good anywhere if I didn't take regular breaks. I was, and am, only human. There were times when the stress of it all was eating me alive. Like one of my AML-widow friends (yes, I now have widow friends) says, "it was like living with a gun to your husband's head for two years." The indefinite anxiety-ridden state of not knowing is a very hard place to be.

These trips home saved my sanity. Yes, traveling for 8 hours every week with a toddler was sometimes a challenge, but every trip home helped me to help Jeff.