Two Years Ago Today...

Two years ago today my husband and I sat across from a doctor who gave us the final diagnosis of my husband’s cancer. My heart was pounding out of my chest and my poor husband was sweating in the chair next to me. It had all started over a month earlier when my husband had gone to the doctor for what he thought was a hernia. Now, after several tests we were finally getting a name for this horrible monster that had invaded my husband’s body.  I remember pulling a small piece of paper out of my purse and scribbling the words, “desmo plastic small round cell sarcoma”. I had no idea what that meant. I remember the doctor saying things like “rare”, “aggressive”, “chemo”, “surgery”.  When we left that office we felt a mixed sense of hope and fear.  The doctor was not an oncologist (he was a hernia specialist/surgeon), but he said that the tumor was totally encapsulated and could be removed. That was encouraging.  He encouraged us to find a medical oncologist. Let’s just say that overwhelmed is an understatement.

Later that evening, after my husband had gone to work (I have no idea why he went to work after hearing such horrible news, maybe just to feel “normal”), I made a huge mistake… I googled the words “desmo plastic small round sarcoma”.  Because DSRCT is so rare, I got very little information, but the information I got was grim.  As I read the words, “15% survival rate”, “deadly”, “extremely aggressive”, “incurable” I felt like my head would explode.  I was in a state of shock.  My husband had a VERY serious, VERY deadly cancer that few survive.

The fact that it was Thanksgiving Eve and I was supposed to be happy and excited for the holidays quickly evaporated.  I was living every wife’s worst nightmare. I went up stairs, closed the bedroom door behind me and wept into a pillow (so my kids could not hear me).  I cried out to God like I had never done before.  I felt so alone and yet so NOT alone. Even in the dark hole that I was in I felt God’s presence. I knew, even though everything seemed out of my control, that HE was in control and HE would provide for my every need and for my husband’s every need.  Little did I know that from there on out we would witness miracle after miracle…all straight from the hand of God!

So, it has been two Thanksgivings since that horrible day and now I always have something very profound to be thankful for. They say that going through something like that makes you appreciate life more, it sounds cliché, but it’s true.  I appreciate my husband more, I appreciate my kids more, I appreciate the little things in life so much more!  So, that’s what I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving…life!!!

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
― Martin Luther

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