Day 9
6/27/2001
I spent yesterday cleaning and clearing all aspects of my life.
Everything that went to the hospital or chemo room I tossed.
Blankets, sweatshirts, pajama bottoms, even the smell of the cucumber and melon lotion …
they all make me nauseous.
I guess I’m trying to put all of this behind me.
I don’t think I ever will…
It’s a part of me.
As much as I have curly hair, I had cancer.
I found this passage today:
Mark 5:34
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.
Go in peace, and be healed of your disease"
But what do I do now?
At least with chemo there was a plan.
There was step 1, step 2, and step 3. I knew where I was and where I needed to be. Now, in remission, there’s just uncertainty and fear.
I spent the next few months dreading my two month checkups and slipping further and further into a deep depression.
The only glimmer of hope, when I wasn’t fearing a recurrence, was that my body “came back on line”. Now all we had to pray for was that my eggs weren’t damaged.
8/10/2001
We met with Dr. Chawla today.
Good news all around. Everything is looking good.
I don’t have to go back for another 2 months!
And, provided everything goes to plan, we can try to have children next year…
Kim and I spent the next few months chatting through emails.
Every now and again a phone call.
I could hear the same terror in her voice that was in my soul.
January 16th, 2002 I watched Kim run the Olympic torch down a stretch of the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles.
Yes, she ran … free and unassisted.
She had broken loose of whatever fear had gripped her heart; the same fear I was still fighting.
That night at my mom’s house my brothers were watching Shawshank Redemption when we came back from the Olympic torch relay.
I was still frightened.
Still scared to dream past today.
And four and half years to cancer free seemed like an eternity.
God works in mysterious ways …
I wasn’t living. I was hiding and waiting. Praying that nothing went wrong.
It was time for me to “get busy living”, because I had fought too hard to “get busy dying”.
I stood up and breathed free air for the first time… I was free.
In February 2002, Mark and I got pregnant.
In March 2002, Kim got pregnant.
In November of 2002 I gave birth to a beautiful little boy named Jacob.
Kim gave birth to a little girl named Emma … and her cancer came back.
Devastation and grief knocked a walking confident girl in remission down to her knees.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be…
I couldn't-
I couldn't-
We lost Kim to cancer two years later.
I was pregnant with my second little boy, Dylann.
And I had just lost my chemo buddy…
There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t look at Jacob and think about Kim and Emma. Moments of grief and guilt plague me when I think of all of the wonderful moments and amazingness of Kim that Emma is missing out on or will never know.
Survivor’s guilt is almost as bad as living through chemo… almost.
But I know Kim wouldn’t want me to live in a world of grief; a world of regret.
So I live and I pray that one day we find a cure.
I pray that no one ever has to experience what Mark and I went through.
Then I crawl into my bed at home with my husband and three little boys and thank God for the gifts He’s given me.
I hope…
this video will take you away from the site to YouTube, but I loved
the complete clip...
