Two blogs in one day, well, I wouldn’t do so, unless i felt the need to say something I feel is important. So, Let me start this one by saying this across the world, millions of people suffer from Cancer, a disease that comes in all types and forms and invades the human body and progresses, until it takes lives, we need to fight it folks!
This is a subject dear to my heart for more than one reason. it started for me, when i was young in 1971, only 15 years old, we living in small town in Dunedin, Florida, having just moved down there with my mother and siblings to find a new home. The idea was we would leave Connecticut and move down, because my parents wanted the warmth. A sudden phone call from dad, changed all of that and we never made Florida or stayed again. He called to tell mom, her father had died from cancer, prostate cancer had taken my grandfather at 71 years old and we all packed up and came home, so mom could bury him with her siblings. He was the first time I had even heard the word cancer and it was a lose for all of us.
Cancer does care what age, what sex, what color, what background or nationality you are, it kills all. It just is impossible to stop,once it hits and even though today’s medical research and creations of cures is stopping many forms of cancer it does not stop it all.
I have lived with cancer in many ways and seen it up close and personal. After grand dad dies we were all fine, in my family but, cancer would hit a girl I knew in high school in the early 70’s. She was the first girl openly chase me down and a sweet person , with a big heart. We never really dated, but I considered her a friend. She came down with ovarian cancer and would fight it from her teen in high school until she reached 62 years old two years ago. Sadly it ate her up from the inside, organ by organ and took her kidneys, finally she shut down, she couldn’t take anymore. Cancer Is not only a killer folks, it is painful and slow moving in some cases. But I moved on too quickly now.
Cancer would raise it’s head again in the 1980,s when I was in The Navy and I received a phone call from the Navy telling me my real father had died of lung cancer in 1984 in New Jersey. He was four years my mother’s senior and after they divorced had seven more children with his second wife after having two of us with mom. He was 55 years old when he went.
Cancer doesn’t stop, is it a gene, or hereditary, or what I don’t know, but it is persistent in my life I can’t escape it it seems. It next raised it head in 1990 in my family, the man who raised me, taught me how to live, and enjoy life, my stepfather died of cancer in October of that year. He was 59 years old when he went, he died refusing chemo and radiation and using only morphine as a weapon against pain.
Again Cancer was not done with us, one year and one day later, my mother died of cancer, lung cancer at age 59 too. Lung cancer had found my family as had other cancers. Now, they were all gone, our parents all dead and cancer still raged on in the world.
Cancer is an invading deadly disease folks, there are any causes of it, and in my parent’s cases it was from smoking two packs a day, each of them. The cigarette industry, had put chemicals in them to keep people addicted to them and it worked, they made billions and billions and millions and millions died. Nicotine is deadly folks in all forms, and the Tobacco Industry knew it.
Cancer was done though for me, even though I didn’t know it, it hit my first wife too and she got breast cancer but survived. Then in 2006, it hit closer to home, it hit my second wife, breast cancer. We went through many things during it, we had tests, and scans and she had all her lymph nodes removed under the left arm, 24 in total none left. I sat with her through Radiation, and chemo treatments for two year and the cancer went into remission in 2008. we thought we were lucky and she survived.
Five years later, I was at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital, I served 16 years and have 6 herniated discs in my spine so they treat me for anything I get. My primary physician is a female doctor who asked me if I had any cancer in my family history, I told her all about the above I mentioned here. The year and date was August 4th, 2013, and she put me in a survey the Veterans Administration was doing on all of us, for a pet scan. I got home and received the call, my right lung had lit up with lung cancer in it. I was told to report back to the Hospital to see a surgeon, they brought in from Yale Hospital a specialist in lung cancer surgery. I sat down, he asked me what I wanted him to do, I said remove it.
On September 4th, 2013 I underwent a surgery, at the West Haven Veterans Hospital, it took then 18 hours, they took a lobe and one third of my right lung that day. I have survived and i am still here today thanks to them.
But I still live with cancer daily, it’s not over folks, in 2016, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer again, this time it has spread to her bones and tissues throughout her body. Since the notice in January of 2016 we have been through Radiation and chemo treatments of all kinds and are still at it today, on a weekly basis. I watch her, feed her, help her dress and clean herself and watch her slowly as she deteriorates slowly over time now. He physical body is slowly going on her as she get incapable of certain things slowly. That is expected folks and i live with it and do all I can to help and keep us going each day we live.
Today it is 2019, she is still with me at 78 years old and i am still with her, at 16 years her junior. I will never leave her or walk away from her. I take her to chemo once a week, sit by her side and watch her as she is filled with Decadron, Pepcid and Taxail, and then given shots to raise her calcium and keep her going. I bring her home each week and she passes out for hour at a time in the recliner i bought her, because she can’t sleep in a bed anymore. I sleep on the couch next to her each night, so she is never alone.
I have notice certain things changing slowly in her now, we are over the three year mark, with her cancer now and treatments. she has slowed down considerably, does less and has even started to eat less, and sleeps more. each night she falls asleep earlier, her memory is slowly beginning to fade some, yet a times she is brilliant and can remember things from her childhood, her first marriage and raising her kids. The flashes and laughter we share are special each day we do so. But, I know what is coming, so do the doctors, as they track her each week, as her Doctor said there will be a time when the taxial will fail and the tumor markers will rise again. when that happens they say, they will switch to a different chemo chemical to try to keep her going, it is how they fight it.
I can’t change it, even though I wish I could, so I do the best I can daily for her, for me and for us as a couple as husband and wife. How much longer will she suffer, I have no answer now. But I know, I will be here when it ends. I wouldn’t have it anyother way either.
So do me a favor folks, all joking aside, all laughter is fine, all caring is great and lasting for all time. as are the tears through the years. Give to the American Cancer Foundation and the research to eradicate this disease, before it eradicates you or all you love too!
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