Today is not another Monday preparing for Chemo, it is my husband’s birthday.

It’s Monday, 7-23-18. 

The last Monday I will have to wake up and prepare for my final Chemotherapy

Yesterday, I told my husband I needed to lay down for a minute. Three hours later I woke up. My body is really starting to swell due to chemo and the 100-degree heat outside. My body also feels physically done with this part of my journey with over 175 days of being on CHEMO!!!

But today is not just another Monday preparing for Chemo, it is my husband’s birthday. So in honor of his birthday, I am going to thank him, here in my group and on my blog. The man that has been by my side through thick and thin since the day we heard the news,

“You have cancer.”

I remember feeling so self-conscious after having a C-section with our youngest child. Now, here I am, warrior with scars all over my body. Not once did you ever flinch away from me. Not one day passed where you did not tell me how beautiful I was. Not a night passed where you did not look at me, lay next to me and wish you could take all this pain away from me somehow.  Thank you for loving me. ALL OF ME, in the worse condition of my life and in some of the best ones.

So many nights I tell my husband that sometimes, even though I am in the pain I am in, it feels like it is easier to be the patient than to be a caregiver in his shoes. Caretakers, all of you, including my husband, deserve some type of extra in life. This man was not just a caretaker of his wife, but this man literally stood up to the plate, went beyond for his wife and two small toddlers. We joke that you became Mr. Mom this year, but that title is it putting it mildly.

Marriage is work, constant work. This journey has also shown me how fragile life can be and a new way to love my husband. While right now we have not been able to celebrate life the way we would want to in the past seven months, I know we will have so many more years to celebrate together. Not just birthdays, but just to celebrate life every day from the smallest milestones to big celebrations!

Thank you, Michael, for standing by me. For helping me through, for drying my eyes, for fighting my fight, for holding me tight, proving to me that you will never let go and for getting me frozen yogurt at midnight.  

” Caregivers are often the casualties, the hidden victims. No one sees the sacrifices they make.”

-Judith London