May 2014.

Wow, my life has changed a lot since then.

Our lives pretty much turned upside down around that time...

My father passed away on Dec 23, 2014. Even as a grown ass adult with children of my own, becoming an orphan was overwhelming, and I was still grieving, deeply, that my father sold our family home the year prior.

First week of January 2015 - my husband met his medical insurance deductible for the first of 5 consecutive years - all in January. Seriously, he has met his medical deductible during the first month of every year for the past 5 years. That is a HUGE disruption to how we live our lives now.

That first year was a broken leg, I think (in memory) it was two days before my father's funeral. He was a champ, going to my father's funeral in a temporary splint and a wheelchair, not having had surgery yet. Then months filled with surgeries, recovery etc. My husband suffered a good part of the year with abdominal pain, gastric upset, and for purposes of this recap - let's call it gastric inconsistency (is this constipation, is this diarrhea, is this dehydration, is this painkiller side effects, is this lack of activity caused [broken leg], is this related to diabetes meds, etc.) Sometime that fall, he changed PCP because he wasn't getting good answers about the gastric/abdominal crap. The new doctor immediately sent him for a colonoscopy.

December 2015 - He was 55 years old, and had never had a colonoscopy. The results were not great. He was diagnosed with colon cancer. Isn't that fucking outstanding. That was the last week of December.

January 2016 - he had surgery to remove the hardware in his leg that was causing him discomfort (he broke some of the screws off and they were wiggling their way out toward his skin). He had surgery to put in a port for chemotherapy. And so began our family relationship with the C word. I had a relatively new job - and my daughter was a manager at a Starbuck's in Wyoming. She was able to come home every two weeks and take her dad to his chemotherapy appointments. One round of chemo - I'm guessing around 8 months (my memory is not necessarily my best friend) and he was declared "Cancer Free" - we had a little party at chemo with a cake. It was great fun, and we were super happy that he had kicked it's ass. We scheduled surgery to remove the affected part of his colon. He had the colon resection and we "moved forward". He had his chemotherapy port removed.

December 2016 - a scan revealed - MORE FUCKING CANCER - how fucking joyful.

January 2017 - a surgery to get a new port. More fucking chemo. Katie couldn't go every time this time - he was adamant that it was unnecessary to have company, so I accompanied him about every third or fourth one. Things looked pretty good. And we rolled into 2018.

January 2018 - oh hey, new tumors, in the liver. FUCK. But wait, the coolest new treatment - [https://www.sirtex.com/us/patients/about-sir-spheres-microspheres/] - basically, inject a gazillion +/- little spheres that have been irradiated, directly into the liver, with the purpose of treating the tumors with radiation. Scheduled for March (I think... memory again). That was cool, and we were so excited. We'll continue some maintenance chemo while waiting for that to work - so lighter dose chemo, every three weeks. And radiation - but not in the classic sense. So that had some shit with it.

So - merp - you'd think the memory would be even better on things more recent, but... I'm literally throwing a dart here - June or July - another scan. And the tumors were smaller, things looked good, but not gone. Let's go back to every two weeks chemo, and check it out toward the end of the year. Life was pretty good - we were confident we were almost at the end of the tunnel and seeing the light at the end.

But... October 31st happened.

I've had genetic periodontal disease, well technically all my life, you know because it's genetic. And I've been really battling bone loss the last several years, probably really started to be concerned about next steps the year my dad died, but it got back-burnered again and again for these other things. Finally, with the light at the end of the tunnel (and a few teeth falling out), I made the decision that it could not be postponed anymore and I had to have a permanent solution. On October 31st I had every tooth in my head pulled out. My youngest daughter came home from Wyoming to take care of me. Thank G-d.

The day after I had my surgery, my husband started to feel absolutely lousy with abdominal pain. After a few days, and the decision that this was not an illness he checked in to the ER. They said it was not his gall bladder, not probably ulcers, not his pancreas, liver, or appendix. Check with your oncologist. Nope, not cancer related, the cancer markers are still coming down and the last CT scan shows that the lesions are shrinking. Check with this general surgeon. Oh hmmm, seems like it could be gall bladder. Let's do an ultrasound. Yep, Gall bladder or rather, common bile duct. We'll clean that out. "If it worked, you'll feel great tomorrow, if it feels the same, that wasn't the problem, if it's worse, you've acquired pancreatitis." It was wonderful the next day - in fact, I should look up that day. That was our last really good day. That night we were back in the ER. They took out his gall bladder about a week later. They said his gall bladder looked terrible, had clearly been "angry" for a long time. The pain was better, but not gone. He had been on daily narcotic pain killers for a couple of months. I was starting to become increasingly concerned about the long term use of the pain pills. He had hallucinated on the dilaudid and scared the hell out of us with that as well. Another couple of weeks have gone by, go back to the general surgeon. They ordered another CT scan and some blood work. Nothing remarkable about either one. Back to the oncologist, he ordered a PET scan. Hubby was getting better at managing his pain and his blood sugar with some reminders and assistance with food, etc. I left for a required annual work trip to San Diego. My daughter was coming down to go to the oncologist with him while I was away.

The phone rang as I was walking into my big huge company meeting, surrounded by hundreds of people. He said "You need to get somewhere private."

My life is completely upside down - not a little twisted around - not all disrupted - not a new routine - He has a lot of lesions in his liver, and they gave him 6 months to live.

I need somewhere to free write about my feelings - I need to vent and worry and question things - I don't think anyone really reads this anymore, so... I will always be those things that I was so many years ago when this blog was a fun way to comment on kids and marriage and baseball and life. But apparently, I'm going to be more of a warrior than I ever imagined I could be, because the Universe has had a funny way of reminding me every few weeks these last few years that I am stronger than I could ever believe in being.

There were good things in these last years too - My oldest daughter is in her dream job, and owns a house. She has a great dog that she (and really everyone else) loves and she is still funny and smart and wise. My Son graduated from college, he played baseball all the way through all of his eligibility. He loves a wonderful girl and they just got engaged. He really likes his job (not using his degree, but he really likes what he does). My youngest daughter is married to a great guy, he is just like another kid to me, and they are thinking about having a baby. She really loves her job, and she's going back to school to finish a different degree than she originally was going for. My new job is great - and we have lots of cool things that we are able to do often. Hubby and I shared partial season tickets to the Colorado Rockies last year, and will again this year. The boy and I share partial season tickets to the Colorado Avalanche, it's a great way to spend time with him. I get to several events in Wyoming every year with one or both girls, University of Wyoming football, rodeo, brew fest. I share season tickets to the Broncos with my siblings, and get to enjoy several football games with my hubby and kids every year. Our house is almost paid for, we have a great old dog and a great new dog. My husband had one of his best teams ever coaching for several years. I had a wonderful time leading a youth organization for young women during those same years. We both made an important impact on those kids, and that feels great.

But... this fucking news. Fuck.