Love and Cancer

I have been blessed throughout this life, so I can’t complain, however I'm giving myself permission to be sad about my Cancer diagnosis as my family and friends see my health decline, and when I'm fearful about facing the chemo room some days. I also struggle with those reality moments Cancer forces you to endure even though I see how "reality moments"  allows me to have greater appreciation and  perspective for the beauty of life; Hope or a Silver Lining of sorts that God will always paint the darkness with.

My reality is,  I have been battling and living with Stage IV Ovarian Cancer, and receiving the treatment to match the diagnosis. The reality is our body's are susceptible to the hardships we've been told would come with treatment, and  it is difficult to grasp doing three more cycles when physically I feel this crummy. I have been told that the half way point is when you really start to “feel it”, and so I can say I have joined the masses on the “I am halfway there and I am thinking about revolting” train. I am only kidding, I would never just give up, but doesn’t life on this Earth make it easy to want to sometimes?

The reality is I have Cancer, and Benjamin and I have tackled and wrestled with this reality, but I will never forget the moment it really hit us. It came relatively late in this journey considering our first meeting with the Oncologist was 11/30, and that day we were clearly told “you can die from this”. Death is the unspoken awareness that comes with Cancer and due to experience Benjamin and I have a keen awareness about death and Cancer, however,  it was not truly real until Valentine ’s Day of this year.  I had completed my second cycle and had enough energy to  get take out with my sweetheart. As we were pulling out of the parking lot I heard a song on the radio and so I turned it up. It was Adele “Someone Like You”, the song is a break up song, but at that moment all I heard was “I heard that you are settled down, that you found a girl, and your married now, I heard that your dreams came true..” As I heard Adele sing those words my mind immediately thought, “if God doesn’t heal me, I want to be in Heaven and hear that my Benjamin found someone to help him and make him happy”. The song continued and the verse rang out “I wish nothing but the best for you, don’t forget me, I remembered you said sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead”. Quickly I was moved to tears, and realized I wasn’t going to be able to hide them from my sweetheart. As we were driving I realized we were by the cemetery where I had seen a man early that day seated next to his Valentine’s grave in a white lawn chair. I decided in that moment that it was easier to tell Ben about the image I had seen earlier than the real reason I began to cry. Hearing the story of a man sitting by his sweetie’s grave moved us both to tears and into an instant where God allowed us to talk about the reality of Cancer. With tear soaked eyes we made our way off the road and to a place we could look on at the sunset that God had shaped into a pink heart on this evening just for us. #Cherishyourlovedones