two years ago today

Dear Cancer,

February 1st. Two years ago today, our lives became all about YOU. You are horrible, life threatening, incorrigible, breath taking, dream stealing, shameless, mind altering, body depleting, and a happiness stomping disease. CANCER. I always use a capital “C” for you because you demand attention! You raped us and dragged us out. You took all that we had and threw it away without hesitation or our permission. I HATE you Cancer. I will never ever forgive you for what you did to the best man I know. I will hold a grudge and hate you until the end of my days.

It was February 1st and I had had enough with the worry, curiosity and concern of how Paul seemed so strange looking. His face swollen, his breathing odd, his energy depleting. The doctor, a new doctor for Paul, was treating him for a sinus infection. Somehow I knew it couldn’t be that. Three times to the doctors and still no relief. In addition he had developed all kinds of purple blotches on his chest and upper torso, as well as purple shaded ears and his nose upon awakening in the mornings.

I was going crazy. I asked questions to nurses I knew. I thought maybe it was a weird allergy. I was so frustrated, because I knew something else was brewing. So I did the best way I know how to find things out without a doctor. I went to Google. Thank God I did. It was there I found the seed that lead to the unbearable journey of tears I am experiencing now. It was that day when, two years ago, I took Paul to Urgent Care to get an X-ray which revealed “a large mass sitting atop his right lung”. Those words held me captive for days. I was stunned into numbness until I was able to rise above those words and move into action to take care of the person who was and still is a part of who I am. I have a vision of that ugly word, CANCER, hanging in the air above our heads in such an all encompassing threatening manner. That tremendously devastating word followed us around for a year and nine months like a weighted chain, until it finally came down to earth, fully embodied Paul and stole the best from us.

February 1st? I hate you too. You are not welcome for me anymore.