Once upon a time there was a young man who had been married to his young wife for four years, their life was full of hopes and dreams for their future. They had a toddler and a baby and they looked forward to all the years ahead of them as a family. They were good people, they did no one harm, they had good careers, life could only get better with time. They dreamt of a day when they could travel the world together, their children would be grown up and leading good lives, so they would be able to go to see the world. They planned that they would do it in alphabetical order, and they giggled at the places they would go with all the strange names. Life could not have been better.
But then out of the blue came the 'big bad wolf' - Cancer was his name - and he seemed determined to huff and puff until he had blown the young couple away! He was out to destroy all of their hopes and dreams. Would he succede?
That young couple was us.
Everything in life was good, we had just had a baby some eight months before the diagnosis and we had a three year old as well. Don't get me wrong we struggled with the things young, married people do, finding the money for the mortgage, clothing the family etc but all that was OK because as we said there was always someone worse off than us.
I remember the day hubby was diagnosed as clear as though it was yesterday. He had gone the hospital for a check up because of a car accident he had been in some four months before, that same day we received compensation from the other party, it was two weeks before Christmas and the money would be handy for the kids to have a good time. I was in our kitchen washing the dishes and the tv was on, the programme 'This Morning' was on and a lady who had left her family because she was dying from cancer and she did not wish to put them through it, was being interviewed. The tears were streaming down my face as I listened to that woman speak, how did someone cope was all I could think. The next moment the back door to our home opened and because I was crying I turned to face the sink - hubby used to say I was too emotional so I did not want him to laugh at my distress - all was quiet as he walked into the kitchen, he did not speak, so I turned to see why and the look on his face will stay with me until the day I die.
'I have cancer and they want me in hospital on Monday', he said.
I remember feeling like the world was starting to sufficate me, the room seemed to be getting bigger and I felt like I was in a void. This did not make sense to me, four months before the docs had said he was alright and to go home and have another baby, he was only going for a check up and to be discharged. I also remember thinking that doctors did not tell people they had cancer when they where on their own, never mind let them drive home with that news. I kept waiting for the punch line to come out of hubbies mouth but it did not come and from that day forward our life was turned into a chaotic mess.
Little did we know back then that this would become our life for the next 14 years.
Hubby went in for surgery on 11th December '95, the surgeon came to see him the day after the surgery, I was sat at the bed with one of hubbies old school friends. I remember the doc telling me we had to leave as he wanted to discuss things with my hubby, I was that dumb struck that I actually got up to leave and it was the old friend that looked at the doc and said she's his wife! 'Oh', came the reply, 'I thought she was your girlfriend, so sorry'.
He told hubby that it looked as if they had got it all and that he would only need a week of chemo and then back to normal. He was going to refer to a cancer unit but did not forsee any issues. Oh, how wrong he was!
On the 22 December, hubby was told that the scans had not been carried out correctly at our local hospital and hubby actually had another eight tumours and he would need 6 cycles of chemo and then more surgery. Could it get any worse?
That Christmas was one of the worst we have had, the kids were too little to understand and everyone around us was so upset that all the festivities turned into a wake.
4th January - Off we went for the first week in hospital for chemo, we had never been in a hospital like it, but local knowledge from when we were kids was that if you went in there you were not coming out, so we were obviously terrified. The first sight to hit us was a chap who was totally green in colour and across the bed form him was a young downs syndrome lad, who did not understand what was happening to him. It was so upsetting that my sister in law had to leave the ward. I had to try and be strong for hubby, but all I wanted to do was to run and never look back but my heart would not allow me to. Hubby was linked up to a drip and then it started, the sickness - back then the anti sickness was not like today, it actually made you vomit - the hair falling out, the sore mouth, the piles, the weight loss until in the end hubby looked like a person from a concentration camp. The chemo lasted 16 weeks and even now it is hard to disquingish one day from the next, the only day that sticks is the day of our childs 4th birthday, the nurses bought a cake for him and because it was easter by then all the patients sent to the shop for eggs for him. We both felt distraught at our child having a birthday in those circumstances but he had a lovely day, the patients and staff went above and beyond for us, thinking back it was lovely really and it taught our child about the kindness of strangers.
I think somewhere in that 16 weeks we just shut our minds off to what was happening, we knew he had to have the chemo and come out the other side and that was all there was too it. Naive maybe but we coped.
Three weeks after the chemo ended we went on holiday, a break before the surgery. Hubby had a full head of jet black hair on his passport photo but when we arrived in Spain he was totally bald, we got stopped by security and boy it was fun trying to explain that one when none of us spoke Spanish, but in the end he seemed to get it and let us go through customs. Two weeks later, the sun had made hubbies hair grow quite fast and even though it was very thin he looked different again, low and behold we got the same officer coming back and he did end up laughing with us at that one.
Hubby then went in for a RPLND, this is called surgery in the UK but in the States it is known as butchery because it is so traumatic. Again it is funny how the brain shuts out the bad memories, we laugh about how hubby thought he was a chicken being cooked (he had one of those metallic sheets around him after surgery and was on a morphine drip), he opened his eyes, looked at all of us distressed relations and said, 'turn me over in 30 mins and baste', with that he became unconcious. I was so proud of him at that moment, he has such a strong sense of fun.
Eight weeks after surgery, hubby told his medics he was going back to work and that we were moving home. At first I thought he was mad, but it was his way of getting back on the horse. The consultants had told us that if you went more than three years without relapse of this type of cancer then you would be clear. So that became our aim. We got passed that time and everything looked great for the future. Unfortunately fate had more in mind for us, but that is for another day.
