HE really is our refuge and strength.....

Friday was the last appointment with the different doctors to plot out our plan.  This was the chemo Doctor.  We told him about the website where you can plug in your numbers and it tells you the longevity of you based on your cancer.  Jim's was 15 yrs.  I was sorta okay with that but not what I would have ever imagined.  This doctor didn't agree.  He said based on what he saw, that number is way too high.  As this man is talking, I can see my hero just sitting there stunned.  It was as if the life had literally been taken from him.  I could physically feel my heart break.  I'm sure Jim is thinking through the monetary process of taking care of me after he's gone.  I'm only thinking I can't live without him.  He is truly my everything.  I don't make any decisions without this man.  Not because I'm not capable, because I want it that way.  

We rock along the weekend, work on the rv to get it ready to move down to cstat with our boys, but it is there....The big elepant....That stupid elephant has been in our lives since May.  It's the presence of cancer.  You want to talk about it, but then again if you do, it because real.  So you put it in the back of your mind to have it come back in the darkest of night.....This was supposed to be the fun time of our lives....The boys are gone....We have devoted our lives to those boys....now they are gone, we were supposed to enjoy our time.....Not going from one doctor to another....Not to mention the expense of it all...There went our cruise.....

So this morning I found a book a dear friend gave me when Jim had his surgery....I opened it up with a attitude and found this verse as the devotional.....God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1.......The feeling that came over me as I read this verse was like when you get in a fight with your husband and he comes to you later and says he is sorry.....I felt like a security blanket had just be placed over my entire body.  I had run away from God the last few weeks because HE wasn't healing Jim like I thought He should have.  It basically said God will take you bout of the trouble you are in but only after you have stopped worring and become calm and quiet.  He uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons.  He regards them not as difficulties but as opportunities.....

Regardless of if Jim get healed here on earth or not, can't determine my retaliationship with GOD.  I can't go through life without HIM.  I feel like a new person when I get back on track.  Who knows what opportunity HE has for us after this is all over.  

I am determined that through the storm I will remain ever faithful.....

For Better or Worse....In Sickness and in Health.....I'll follow you whatever.....

I remember on August 15, 1992, I stood in front of friends and family in my beautiful white wedding gown and vowed to love Jim in sickness and in health....

Now, honestly at that age, I wanted to believe I knew what that meant.  I watched my Dad love my mom durning her three grueling years of cancer.  He never drew weary of loving and caring for her.  I remember them sitting in the recliner together....

Now as an adult, I know they must have sat there cherishing that moment as if it were probably their last.  I just thought it was cute. It was a love I longed for one day.....

Now, here I am sitting in our recliner with the love of my life, wondering why, of all the people in the world, he got picked to have cancer.  We had so many plans to just be spontaneous, like we were before we had kids, and just travel....

Today, we went back to the doctor to get the catheter out...finally...While we were there, I had to know why we haven't gotten the  pathology report. I can't truly breathe until I know we are free and clear.  I knew way in the back of my mind we wouldn't be completely clear, his numbers were too high, but I wanted to believe it......Sure enough, there was "positive margins", foreign numbers I didn't have a clue what they meant, and metastatic carcinoma....what in the world does all that mean.....Well, means we are not done with this war yet.  We have yet another battle to fight.  We go back to the Doctor on Tuesday to let him tell us what our next battle is....

I got mad, I got sad, I got jealous of all the people walking around laughing, planning trips, being on trips, eating out as if nothing was bothering them.  I'm on the computer researching these medical words and what to do next.  My favorite thing to do when I need to just think is to mow...My family loves when I get stressed....means they don't have to mow.....

As the mower is spitting grass out and looking fresh, I thought about Jim, I remembered our wedding day, I remembered all the good times, I remembered how many times a day he makes me laugh. I remembered I made a promise to love this man regardless of what hits us.....As my mower was running and I was lost in the songs I was listening to, my eye caught this beautiful sight....

Jim sitting at our kitchen table as he does a lot....working.....I watched him for a good while....suddenly I didn't feel cheated out of not having the summer of our dreams...I felt an overwhelming sense of love for this fighter...We are in this thing called life together, on good days and on bad days....Waking up everyday with this man is a good day no mater in sickness or in health........

Thank you Cancer.....

Dear Cancer:

I wanted to update you on Jim....Since you have come into our lives attempting to destroy it, we have reconnected with friends we haven't seen in years, we have had people praying for us all over the United States, I heard from several people on fb telling us they were praying, we have had some of the most amazing meals ever, but the best part, we have slowed our pace down and just sit together.

So, I want to thank you for all the above. You can't come into our lives and destroy it.....You can make us take a new route, which we will have to, but you can't untie a knot that is secured by Jesus Christ.

Letting go of today...

I've cooked, cleaned, shopped, washed clothes, in anticipation of what tomorrow will bring.  Today, I'm finding myself following him everywhere he goes.  When I don't see him, I search until I find him.  I sit and watch him when he is outside working on the pool....He loves working on that thing...Probably therapy for him and everything happening in the next week.  

June 28 will forever change my life.  The one thing I hate most....cancer has come uninvited once again.  It came in 1982 and took the very thing I needed most in my life (at the time)...my Mom....I don't do life without her.....I watched that uninvited guest rob her of everything she held dear...her life....And now, it has come in my life again to take the very thing I need most in my life.....My love.....I don't do life without him.....I find the bitterness really creeping in my life today....We should be on vacation, running around a beach, eating way too much, laughing with our boys, seeing sights we've never seen before....Instead I smell healing broth boiling in my kitchen, while I watch my dryer spin round and round with the sheets that will be nice and clean for him to sleep tonite.......Because tomorrow is the first day of our new life....