Category: Grief

Insights From a Dead Man

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Today I was cleaning my office. There were piles and piles of paper on my desk. Old bills – that probably got paid, several children’s drawings that you know are shit but feel terrible about throwing away, so many sympathy cards that I both love and loathe, books, more insurance notices than I could ever possibly need (hello insurance company, I’m aware my husband died, I’m the one that informed you, could you please leave me alone now?), photo books that we made over the years. You get the picture, my office is a mess, still is, because underneath all the piles I was searching through, I found a notebook.

Ash was big on notebooks. He loved to write things down and then forget he wrote the things down, ask what he did with the notebook where he wrote the things down and get mad at everyone for misplacing the aforementioned notebook. It was a thing. It happened a lot. We got used to it. I’m not sure he did, though.

Anyway, at the bottom of one of the excessive piles on my desk I found one of Ash’s notebooks. In it, there was a letter that he wrote to me on my birthday this year. I won’t share that with you because that’s just for him and me. But I also found just some things he wrote down that I think can help us all and I’d like to share them with you.

His Advice to Jack, Colt and me (and everyone else too):

You can do anything you put your mind to. Seriously. Write down your goals.

Choose your friends carefully. Good friends care about you. They hold you accountable. They support you. They do not try to get you do do bad things. They have your back.

The most successful people are also the most focused and hardest workers.

Surround yourself with happy, positive people. Life is too hard to be negative. Life is too good to be negative. Life is too short to be negative.

See the good in life and in people.

Live by the golden rule. Know the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad.

Make the right choices.

Live with a clean conscience.

And lastly, Kellie, Colt and Jack go play golf! Top Golf counts, but not every time. You must play family golf at least once a year.

Ash lived in his 37 years. He lived more than most do in a whole lifetime. And he loved to give advice, solicited or not. I am extremely grateful to have found this today. I am extremely grateful that he chose me to spend his life with. I am extremely grateful.

I will heed his advice every day. I will also mess up every day, but that’s ok, too.

And I can’t wait to find more notebooks.59206749902__B8CA1DFA-1433-4BC0-A5BE-CC94501FA740

 

Take It On Back

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I met Mr. Wonderful (his name is Ash, and I feel like I may actually start using his name now – I don’t think he gives a shit about anonymity anymore) at a Relay for Life event. How’s that for ironic?! We were set up by mutual friends. He was from Texas. I was not. He had a niece and nephew with him. I did not. They were very young children and I did not know how to interact with young children, so our meeting didn’t last long, plus I was doing some very important sumo wrestling “Relay” job and it needed my full attention!!

Side note – I later found out that the only reason he agreed to meet me was because “my name sounded hot” so there’s that. Kudos mom and dad! I’m sure that’s what you were hoping for when you named me all those years ago!

Anyway, we met, he apparently thought I was “ok” and called me the next day at work to officially ask me out on a date. Me thinks he thought I was a little more than “ok” but even up until the very end, he never admitted it. Ass hole. That was kind of the nature of our relationship. He thought I was “ok.” I thought he was an ass hole. An ass hole that I loved, however. He probably loved me, too!

We went to a local restaurant on our first date. We met there in separate vehicles, because, what if we hated each other and needed to escape. We were young, we were attractive. I’m pretty sure I changed my outfit no less than 13 times trying to look classy, yet sexy. There’s a very fine line. I had liked what I had seen enough at Relay for Life to care how I presented. I wanted to make an impression!!

I had a great time on our first date. Now, I kept up with him IPA for IPA, and back then, I didn’t have 2 kids, a large SUV and 2 dogs. Tubby I was not! Competitive? For sure! So, again, kept up with him beer for beer. Got a little drunker than I should have, may have talked about my “perfect tits” (I’m not sure if they were perfect back then but I can assure you, after attempting to breast feed 2 children and living in terminal cancer land for the last 13 months, perfect is not the word that comes to mind) a little too much. Young and stupid brunette, booth in the back, here I am!!

The point is, I didn’t know that would be my last first date. I was actually seeing someone in a kinda sorta way when I met Ash (you can read between the lines – sorry mama!). I called that guy on my way home from my first date with Ash  and told him I couldn’t see him anymore, I had met someone, and I wanted to see where it would go. I knew this other thing was going nowhere but it was fun nonetheless. Ah, to be in your 20s again – again, sorry mama! But there was something about that first date, I knew it was special, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with the massive amount of beer (maybe it did a little 😉 but I felt SOMETHING and it was exciting.

I won’t mention that the next day I had to call in sick to work because of my massive hangover. Or maybe I will. Whatever. We’re all human here. I still like to drink beer. I’m still massively competitive.

Unfortunately, I didn’t hear from Ash again the next day or after the standard cool guy 3 day waiting period or even a week later. I assumed I was too much, too much loudness, to much tit talk, too much beer drinking, sailor-mouthed, unladylike kind of gal. And that was ok. I am not everyone’s cup of tea. I was sad, nobody likes rejection, and I thought we had a great time.

Low and behold, 2 weeks later he calls me. Wants my opinion on what color sheets he should purchase from the Ralph Lauren Outlet. I’m excited. I’m confused. Will he ask me out? Does he like me? Is he the weirdest man I’ve ever met?

All of the answers were YES!!! He did ask me out, eventually (although not the day of that phone call). He did like me. He is undoubtedly the weirdest man I have ever met. And today I miss him. As I will miss him always.

But today I had a good day. And I thought about how we met. And it didn’t make me cry. It made me smile.

 

 

Aluminum

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I just had a very hard time spelling aluminum. I’m still not sure it’s right?! I literally sounded it out in my head at least 7 times and went back and re-typed it 3. Someone’s a genius!!!

Aluminum you ask? Well, that’s the anniversary I just celebrated with Mr. Wonderful. Apparently 10 years is the year of aluminum. Reynold’s Wrap for the win!

Anywho, 10 years – I can honestly say I never thought we’d make it! We’ve had some trying times in our relationship (I mean, before the obvious terminal cancer bit). Several times we were both done with each other for one reason or another. Most of them really meaningless. Some of them not as meaningless, but we fought, we battled to Seattle if you will (more than once), we did couple’s therapy, we did online seminars, I did therapy on my own. We put the time in, and you know what, we learned, we grew, and we made it fucking work! And I couldn’t be prouder of that. So, again, 10 years means a lot to us.

Now, another reason I didn’t think we’d make it to 10 years is that obvious terminal cancer bit. The one we were hit with last September. The one I was going to blog about on here, about our journey, our feelings, every little detail you didn’t care to know! Surprise! I didn’t do it, couldn’t find the time, couldn’t find the motivation, couldn’t find the want to! (I know that no one is really shocked by this!) But, when we were told 8-12 months last September, I didn’t know if we would see the year of aluminum. That’s a hard thing to admit. But, we did make it, and we tried to make it extra special. Mr. Wonderful and I had an adventure in Durango, CO.

We used to live in Durango for a short time in our lives, before the dog, before the marriage, before the kids and houses and responsibilities and you get where I’m going. Back when we were young, dumb and in love. We spent about a year in Colorado and Mr. Wonderful has been itching to get back to Durango since we left. And it was even more gorgeous than I remember it, but I tell ya, it made me realize how lucky I am to live where I live, surrounded by the people I love! Man, am I sappy today!

The adventure we had hoped to have wasn’t quite the way we thought it would go. Cancer will do that to you. Most of our every day lives we are surrounded by kids, family, friends, chores, beach time, pool time, so many things that keep us distracted. Mr. Wonderful and I don’t really think about the future, how uncertain it is, what it will look like, we stay busy, which makes it easy to forget that he has terminal cancer. I mean, we’re not daft, we know it’s there, we know what it means, I just mean that we don’t let it affect us every day because we don’t have time to think about it.

Well, go on vacation without the children was our brilliant plan! And it was brilliant. It was just also really, really sad and really, really quiet. Without all the distractions, we did have time to think, reflect, look back and look forward. I cried more last week than I probably have in the last 6 months. I could not get my shit together. And I think that’s probably ok. I hold it together pretty well generally. Just the quiet – Mr. Wonderful and I have lost our ability to carry on a conversation about nothing, we small talk no more. We can go and have a good time but there is constantly a black cloud hanging over our heads. I cried at most of our meals, making all the people around us feel super awkward. If one of us wasn’t crying, our eyes were just darting around the room, watching other people. Again – hello awkward couple – I thought we had at least 20 more years before that phase set it. The cancer, the treatment, both have really taken it out of Mr. Wonderful. Our hikes were short, our naps were long. And that is all wonderful, except for I know what it means, I know what’s coming. And I don’t know how to handle it.

The Chaos of it All

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It’s been a while. We opened a business and that consumed our lives. It was fun. It was difficult. I stopped cooking a lot because of the nightly hours of said business. And now, that business is for sale.

It’s funny how you can be living, surviving, doing all the things we all do on a daily basis. And then BAM, you are hit with news that forever changes everything. That’s what happened to us.

My husband and I were working a lot last summer. We barely saw our kids, but it was ok, we were building something, showing them what hard work was with the hope that all that hard work would pay off.

It’s August, we’re both exhausted, but my husband more so. He has an autoimmune disease, so had some belly pain, too, which we equated to all the long hours and lack of sleep on top of the primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). We’ve lived with this for years now, so it’s nothing new.

Only this time, it was something new. The pain didn’t go away. As a matter of fact, it actually got worse. So bad, that he became couch ridden. He couldn’t tolerate laying flat in a bed, so the recliner is where he spent his time. He lost 25 pounds, couldn’t eat, wasn’t sleeping. I kept telling him to go to the doctor, call the doctor, do something. He still refused to believe it was anything other than PSC symptoms until that fateful September day where he finally called. He started with his liver doctor (where he’s seen for the PSC). Liver doctor says it sounds like a bowel obstruction, go directly to your local ER, do not pass go, do not collect $200. While that news wasn’t thrilling, it felt like relief to have an answer and be on the path to feeling better.

We knew our ER doctor from around the community. We were having fun in the ER. Laughing, joking, making the best out of the “shitty” situation if you know what I mean! Husband was taken for a CT to confirm what we were already certain was true – bowel obstruction. He comes back. still laughing, still joking.

We have a bit of time to ourselves before the results come. Husband may have dozed off for a few. I may have looked at Facebook for a few. But then the doctor comes back, and we can tell that something is different. His tone, his facial expressions, his mannerisms. He’s not easy going, fun doctor from our golf leagues last winter. He’s serious. He’s somber. We’re scared.

Bowel obstruction would have been great news. Hell, a lot of other things would have been far superior to the news we received. Although, on that day, we still didn’t know how bad the news was going to be. What we did know was cancer, all over the abdomen, don’t know where it came from and our local hospital was not equipped to figure it out. So, husband was transferred to a larger hospital about an hour away. And that’s where our journey begins.

We are 36 years old. We have 2 young children. We are devastated. We are hopeful. Cancer sucks but it’s cured all the time. He’s young and otherwise healthy. Everything will be just fine. That’s what we keep telling ourselves.

I can’t say that the care we received at the bigger hospital an hour away was anything to write home about. It was sterile. We felt like just another case. Nobody seemed to care about the news we were still reeling from. Our nurse smelled like a damn brewery from her fun the night before. We had to get out of there. They did all the necessary tests and we hightailed it as soon as we could.

We knew there was better out there and we were determined to find it. And we did. We eventually landed at Duke Cancer Center. What I can tell you is those are some of the most amazing people I have ever encountered in my 36 years. I will get to more on that in a later post, should I actually stick to posting again!

For now though, my friends, let me share with you the news we were given in regards to my 36 year old husband with 2 young children and a nearly thriving business.  Cholangiocarcinoma, also known as bile duct cancer, Stage IV, terminal.

TERMINAL. Terminal. terminal.

And that’s why I’m here writing now. I need somewhere to vomit my thoughts. I need somewhere to scream, shout and let it all out. I need somewhere to cry. I need somewhere to laugh. I need somewhere to protest the sheer bull shit of it all. I need somewhere to be where I don’t have to be quite as strong as the front I’m putting on every day.

 

 

I’m not always serious but when I am it’s because my dad is in ICU

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Life is nothing but an emotional roller coaster. My dad is in the ICU with acute kidney failure. Those are scary words. The scariest part is nobody has figured out why yet. They’re thinking some kind of infection in the body, but are still guessing and eliminating at this point. He will have an MRI with contrast today that will hopefully point someone in the right direction. 

My dad is a great man. He is the greatest grandfather my boys could ever possibly have. And they are both so attached to him that I can’t even think about how they would manage without him, let alone my mom, my brother and me. I have put up walls all around myself so that I can’t think about the worst case scenario. Because if I do, this mama/daughter/wife/sister/friend will turn into an emotional wreck and that’s not good for anybody. The few times I have let myself imagine life without him, I have truly lost my shit. 

I’m a lucky girl in that death hasn’t  touched me a whole lot in my 33 years. I lost my grandmother a few years ago to cancer and the pain was almost unmanageable at times and that time my children weren’t affected. Jack was less than 2 and had only met her a handful of times. For my boys, I am staying positive, I am keeping my shit together, I am smiling and laughing and cracking jokes and playing trucks and whistling the Star Wars theme music. But inside of me there is a deep fear that I’m trying like hell to avoid because if I don’t, I fear the pain will be more than I can handle. 

So, I’m sorry friends. No recipes today. No quirky jokes or dirty innuendo. Just a scared girl trying to get by. Hug your loved ones tight and never let them forget how much they mean to you. xoxo