Sundays with April

Hello, again! I have been gone from here for a little while and wanted to share why I have been absent and the trials of our life. I haven’t been able to come to this space and share yet. But, I am ready to share now. This first part of the story I am going to share was written on May 5. I just couldn’t finish it. This is a long story of what has been happening in our life so grab your favorite drink and settle in. I have so much to share!

I have had this blog for 7 years if you can believe it! Some of you have been here for the entire lifetime of the blog and have seen the small glimpse that I have shared into the life of my husband’s cancer since 2016 and some of you are just reading about it for the first time.

I don’t talk about it too often here because I like to keep this a place of great inspiration and joy!

But his cancer has turned into something tough to manage, and I know you would want to know how he is doing and what has been going on in our lives.

Having a blog opens me up to being able to share the not-so-amazing parts of life, too. And I think there is beauty in seeing the person behind the words and tutorials.

If you follow me on IG, then you know that we have been in the ICU for the last 3 weeks. My hubby has actually been in the hospital for a month, but it got bad enough that he was admitted into the ICU.

Why is he there? He can’t breathe.

He is an amazing man who has been battling cancer for the last 8 years. He is the strongest, most courageous, and positive person I know. He is the most neighborly neighbor you will ever meet. He really shouldn’t still be here after being told in May 2016 that he needed to get his affairs in order because he has Stage 4 Kidney cancer.

He has defied all odds.

His strong mind and will to live for his family have gotten him this far.  I always joke with him that he knocks on God’s door, God cracks it open, and says “Can you come back later? I am not ready for you yet”.

He has gone through so many treatments, procedures, and surgeries, and just last summer, we were hiking and walking 4 miles every day. He was ultimately cancer-free!

And then it came back and it hit him really hard. The change in him from September to November was devastating, as the decline happened so rapidly.

In December, his cancer had taken over half of his liver, and the only option available was to have an extreme amount of radiation injected directly into the tumor. Little did we know that the radiation, paired with his regimen of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, would have a lasting and devastating effect on his lungs.

He got what we thought was just a cold in February, but he had started to work out at home again and was feeling pretty good, and he was just working through it. Until he couldn’t. That cold was actually the start of pneumonia.

He has had chest scans and been on every antibiotic and steroid imaginable. And he has been sick for so long and feels bad so often that he just thought it was another wave of illness. We didn’t know how bad it had become.

Fast forward to the beginning of April. We were on a trip to Newport Beach that we had planned back in the Winter. He didn’t feel great, but he wanted to go on this trip with me. He was hellbent on going. I told him we could wait until he felt better but he insisted on taking me on this trip because we hadn’t been on a trip together since our daughter’s wedding in 2017.

We had the best time! He didn’t feel good and had to sleep sitting straight up in bed because of his “cold”. He tried his best to hang in there and participated in everything. Even if he felt terrible, I knew he didn’t feel good, but he never let me know just how bad he felt. In a way, I think he didn’t want to disappoint me.

And I am so glad we went. We stuck our toes in the sand and watched people pass by on the boardwalk for hours. We binged “Love on the Spectrum” with our friends while it rained through the weekend, went on a boat in the ocean, had lunch while anchored in a bay, ate great food, and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. Then we came home, and it all became a nightmare.

We came to the ER because he was having trouble breathing. The pneumonia wasn’t letting u,p so he was treated for 3 days and released. 5 days later, we were back in the ER. His oxygen saturation in his blood was so low that it became life-threatening. X-rays showed the rapid decline of his lungs, and they sent him to the ICU. He has been there ever since.

Fast forward 3 weeks. Here we are. I never thought, in a million years, that he wouldn’t be home by now. And that the last time I would hear him speak to me would be a week ago.

He has been placed on a ventilator and has something called ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome), and it is terrifying. The lungs have become so stiff that it has been hard for him to expand his lungs on his own.

Watching this strong presence of a man that I have been married to for 32 years suddenly not able to speak or respond to me is so devastating and gut-wrenching.

Yesterday they called to tell me that one of his lungs had partially collapsed and they needed to do another procedure. My heart sank. I cried. I cried hard. Until now, I was clinging so hard to the certainty that he was getting better. That this was the thing he needed to give his body the rest required to heal and recover.

I have been crying every day since he was admitted to the hospital. I go to sleep crying. I go in the shower and cry. If someone hugs me I cry. If I am asked how I am I cry. It is so hard. And families go through this every.single.day.

And nurses. Oh, nurses are true sweet angels sent from Heaven. I have seen so much trauma and loss in the ICU since we have been there. But I have also seen victories! Nurses have a tough job. Love on a patient, but don’t get attached. Treat the patient with dignity and grace, but make the hard choices when you know what you have to do to help them. They are truly remarkable.

The thing that he said to me that I will remember most since he has been in the ICU is that I make him feel safe. When I leave he has no one to advocate for him. He knows that when I am there he has everything he needs and someone who truly wants the best for him is watching every monitor and every move he makes.

Record scratch……….

He developed something called AIP (acute interstitial pneumonia). His lungs had stiffened up so much that there was

no longer any help the doctors could offer him. He no longer looked the same. He didn’t look peaceful. He just looked absent. His body was beginning to shut down and on May 9, 2024, almost 8 years to the day of finding out he had cancer, my husband passed away, and my heart is so broken. Even as I type this, my eyes are welling up and tears are streaming down my face.

My children and I were in the room together, and even though it was a peaceful passing, it was the most traumatic thing I have ever been through. He knocked on Heaven’s door, and this time it swung open and God embraced him.

I didn’t know those would be our last photos together. I wish I had taken more. I wish a lot of things. But I am so happy we went on that trip and those smiles were true joy. I will treasure those memories forever.

Everything since then has been a blur. I planned to get him home and begin rehab. It was the only plan, and I had no Plan B.

The thought of him NOT coming home actually never entered my mind. He had defied all the odds for so long. He always pulled through. So why would this time be any different?

I had to call family and friends, we had to plan his service, and I have had to do so many administrative things and it has been really, really hard.

It has been two months and two days since he passed. I have moments when I am ok, and then I have moments that send me spiraling; I never know which place I will find myself from one moment to the next. I am strong, and I have all of my children within a short distance from me, so I show up, even when I don’t feel like it. It doesn’t mean it is easy; it is hard. But God’s provision was enough yesterday, is enough today, and will be enough tomorrow. I cling to the hem of Jesus and know that God has a plan for my life.

It makes me so angry that he isn’t here. He fought until his very last breath to stay. He wanted nothing more. He just wanted to be here, so I will continue to show up and honor my husband’s life by living mine and never take another day for granted.

I am beginning to breathe again. Thank you for all of your support through this devastating time in my life, for continuing to hang in there until I returned, and for loving this blog and content. I hope you will continue to stick around because I have so much to bring to you.

Have a blessed week. Say all the things to the people you love in your life because tomorrow is promised to no one, and don’t sweat the petty small stuff. It truly is not worth it. Be happy, be joyous, be kind. You never know what someone is going through, and you just might be the one good thing in their day.