Just breathe.

Some days really take it out of you. Nothing big really happened...just a mentally long day. So many thoughts recently...

May....Well the month of May has not proven to bring me much happiness...in fact, twice it has devastated my life. May 21, 2oo6 my Mom passed away, and May 15, 2009 my husband was diagnosed with Cancer. Today, I thought a lot about how those days have impacted my life. How every time I watch Dave walk out the door...I pray that I will have him with me for many years to come. This Thursday we meet with the Oncologist to go over test results to see if Dave is still cancer free, I am praying and praying!! While I do feel as though Dave and I have had a pretty optimistic attitude about things thus far, I also think it is okay that I have a good deal of anxiety over the upcoming appointment. Maybe these 4 month appointments will get easier with time...maybe not. In some ways I think that someone who loses a parent is jaded in a way. I try daily to see the best and tell others that "I am sure everything will be fine" and sometimes I believe it...and sometimes I say it because I feel as though if I tell people that I am scared and fear the future...that I would be giving in. That I would be letting Cancer win. So though I may shed more than a few tears at night by myself...and I may be completely paralyzed with fear from time to time...I will always tell people that we are okay, and we are sure everything is fine. Because that is how I cope, I refuse to give in, I refuse to let Cancer win. Today we are living, today we are well, today we are fine.

One year.

Today I have been married for one year, and I could not be happier with my life! I remember my wedding like it was yesterday, however so much has happened in this past year that it also seems like a lifetime ago. This year we have had career changes, school changes, cancer, sadness, future plans, love, happiness and lots and lots of laughter (and eating....lots of eating). We have again reaffirmed that we will stand by each other no matter what happens...and we will get through it.

I love my husband more today than yesterday and I am sure I will love him more tomorrow than today. This week we are spending a few days at the Sybaris to relax, unwind and just enjoy each other for a while. I will for sure post pictures of our trip when we get back at the end of the week, until then...adios!!

Explaining myself.

I have to start by saying I thank God every single day for my sister. Obviously I have always loved her (my parents told me I had to...KIDDING!!!) But over the last few years, Linds has truly become my very best friend. Sometimes I feel like she is the only person that I don't have to explain myself to...and I cannot begin to explain how thankful I am for that feeling.

Dave and I are trying to conceive. There ya go universe, it's out there, though I may have hinted to it before, now I am saying it. Different people have different goals, or needs in their life, so when someone says "I don't want kids until I am 35, or I don't want kids at all I would rather have a high powered career and focus on that", I don't judge them, that is their decision and I have to assume that they feel that their choices are right for them. So here I am, almost 24 and Dave almost 27, married for a year (this coming Sunday) and we are ready for a child. And I should not have to explain myself...but I will anyways.

A little over 3 years ago I lost my mom to Cancer. Just under 4 months ago my 26 year old husband was diagnosed with Testicular Cancer. NOTHING is guaranteed in life. LIFE is not a guarantee. We were slapped in the face with that reality and I am not interested in waiting around to see whats next. I refuse to wait just because other people think I should be older, or I should finish school, or we should jump through whatever hoop they feel would make us "ready". We weren't "ready" for Dave's diagnosis, we weren't "ready" when my mom passed away, were weren't "ready" when my dad fell out of a tree (a story that deserves it's very own blog entry)...for this, I am ready. In a couple weeks we go to the doctor to have tests run, where they will hopefully tell us Dave is cancer free and we will go on our merry little way, or they could tell us that the cancer is back and now we need to fight. If it is, then we will deal with it, beat it and move on. But the effects of treatment are unknown, Dave may become sterile, or he may just not be able to produce enough due to chemo...we just don't know.

So for today, we are trying to have a baby. Today we are clinging to each other and knowing that tomorrow holds no promises. TODAY, we are content..no, happy.

Fun with groceries :)

Today I went grocery shopping...and spent $90...and got enough meat, snacks, drinks, and side dish ingredients to feed us for about 2 weeks. Yippee on my wallet! Dave and I usually like to cook at home but it seems like the last couple weeks we have been in a bit of a rut and we have been eating out WAY too much, not only spending extra money needlessly, but putting way too much fast food in our bodies. Anyways, today I bought all sorts of yummy stuff to cook this week and I feel so much better just knowing we will be eating a roast tonight and not something that begs the question, "do you want fries with that?".

Not too much else new around here, Nicole will be here in less than 2 weeks! Tomorrow we are having a cookout back at the pond with the fam, Linda and Tanya are coming along with Tanya's babies...so of course I cant wait :) Anything involving babies and I am in! Will try to usdate with some pictures of the cookout tomorrow!

Memories pressed between the pages in my mind...

Tonight I am watching home videos, crying and laughing as I again realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family, and facing the reality of how much was lost when my mom passed away.

Everyday I hear about children being mistreated, abused, called names, resented for intruding on their "parents" lives. Our parents never took Lindsay and I for granted, everything they did was for us. I have known this for a long time, but everytime I pop in a home video, I am reminded of how lucky Lindsay and I are. When we were very young Dad worked and went to school, and still found time to be with us and love us deeply, and my mom went without so that her children could have everything we needed, spent hours videotaping us do everyday mundane things, but I get it, they didn't want to forget the little things. We were never hurt in any way by our parents, physically, emotionally or mentally. And each day, our parents taught us a little more about being good people, caring for others and living life.

My poor sister really seemed to get thr brunt of it as a child (wink wink) I have heard at least 4 times on this tape, "Lindsay PLEASE get your sister" as I was trying to thwart my dad's attempts to study, but Lindsay was busy doing a "commercial" for the camera...very advanced that one was. It becomes obvious that my sister was my idol, she had a pretty amazing fashion sense (second only with Napoleon Dynomite's love interest), and was alltogether very advanced, writing books (which she describes as "happy, then sad, but then happy"), her dancing and singing skills were way beyond her years, and really just being an all around trend setter.

Watching these video's are however bittersweet. I see my mom and sometimes I can close my eyes and when I hear her voice, it is as if she was sitting right here next to me (power of surround sound I suppose). I miss her everyday...every minute. I do however think I have begun how to truly understand the meaning of "tis better to have loved and lost...", because while losing my mom has been the most painful thing of my life, we are all better because of her. My mom and dad together gave my sister and I a childhood that could not have been better (minus the sundae incident linds), we are both so very lucky and still so loved. I can only pray that Dave and I give our children the lives that we have been blessed with by our parents.

Fear, Happiness and a disappearing act...

Where did I go?! Well I have spent the last few weeks praying, crying, laughing...and thinking. So here is the short (and a little long) of it....

On the Tuesday after surgery Dave and I met with Dr. D and he went through the diagnosis and treatment plan. Dave had a Pure Seminoma (which is the better kind) that was in Stage one with no metastasis anywhere else in his body, and his tumor markers (which are seen through blood work) were quite low. All of the above are incredible blessings and we could not be more thankful. The plan, as Dr. D saw it was to do 18-24 treatments of radiation, which would leave Dave with a 97% chance of the cancer never reoccurring. He sounded so sure of himself that it made us feel as though that was the only option, and that was what we needed to do. While Dr. D has been a major blessing in this ride...I was beginning to feel that maybe we needed to go one step further. Dr. D is a Urologist, although a very very good one, we were dealing with Cancer and we decided we needed to speak with an Oncologist. So we decided to see the best, we made and appointment with Dr. E....the very doctor who treated Lance Armstrong for testicular cancer.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday (what is with us and Tuesday's?!) We headed down to Indianapolis to meet with Dr. E and get his take on this whole mess. As we walked towards the "Cancer Pavillion" I could feel those fears welling up inside. I could feel things that I have never really dealt with about my mom coming to the surface...but this was not the moment for that to come out, so I smiled and took my husbands hand and we headed inside. Meeting with Dr. E was by far the best experience through this whole beautiful mess. He was easy to talk to and explained our options very clearly and spoke gently to a young couple faced with a big decision. And after much discussion and consideration we decided to take Dr. E's personal recommendation and opt out of radiation and go with a maintenance plan instead. This decision has brought me quite a bit of peace as I am NOT a fan of preventative radiation. So we left the hospital that day feeling a sense of relief and calm.

After leaving the hospital we headed to our hotel in downtown Indy and decided to treat the rest of the day and night as a vacation...and we had a blast! Just spending time with my husband away from all of the everyday stresses of life was exactly what I needed...and I know this trip is what he needed also. My only regret is that we didn't have the chance to stay a couple more nights!

Here are a few pictures from our trip...

The views from the hotel roof...

A couple of the fountain area at night...

And a pretty perfect end to a great night....

Tuesday came.

As much as I was dreading it, and anxiously awaiting it's arrival...Tuesday came. We arrived at the hospital bright and early for some testing, CT scan followed by a chest x-ray and some blood work. Dave drank the barium in what the nurse thought was record time! (He insisted that was the only way to do it, his words: "it's not like a nice cocktail that I am going to sip") after that we had a couple hours to kill (during which time we went to a pawn shop and scored Guitar Hero 3 for our PS3 for $10!) Then it was back to the hospital for surgery...a radical right orchiectomy. Dave made SURE they knew it was the right side, his right, I found that pretty humorus especially being that one was about 3x the size of the other...

We hung out in pre op for an hour or so, then before we knew it, the nurse came with the loopy drugs (for him not me....although Lord knows I could have used some at that point!) And he was taken back into surgery, after some phonecalls to family I plopped down in the waiting room with a diet coke, watching Everybody Loves Raymond on a giant LG Flat screen tv with the WORST cable I have ever seen, not that it mattered much at that point...I was mostly just staring at the clock anyways. But at 4:26PM (surgery was started about 5 till 4) Dr. D came breezing out the doors and told me everything went smoothly they were all done and he would need to see Dave and I next tuesday to go over the pathology results and decide on a gameplan. I had to waiti about 45 minutes until Dave was in "Phase 2" recovery, when I walked back he was sitting up, eating some cracker, smiling and ready to get the heck home! We were gone by about 5:45, and home by 6:30.


Recovery has been a little rougher than I expected, mostly with a great deal of fatigue and pain in his incision. Work for him has been difficult being that he is on his feet the whole time, and slowing him down has been no small task!

So here we are...another monday night, awaiting another tuesday, if it is possible I have a bit more fear about tomorrow than I did last week. Last tuesday was procedures and scans...tomorrow brings answers and reality and uncertainty.... sometimes I think that if ignorance is bliss than I would be happy to be a fool...