We live an imperfect
life. We’re imperfect people. We’ve done everything you’re supposed to do,
completely backwards, but
we are HAPPY. We enjoy the little things as much as the big things. We live on the positive side of
life, even in the darkest of times. We are what you call “glass half full” kind of people, probably annoyingly so lol…… But, I intend to stay that way, through
all the crazy fucked up paths, and the perfect, amazing, wonderful ones.
This new road we are about to embark on may be super scary, and anxiety ridden with all of the unknowns, but I will remain by Josh’s side during every dark and scary path we face. We have remained a team during every moment of good and bad, without falter, and that will never change.
Josh and I have been together for 8 years. This man is my other half. My puzzle piece, my partner in crime. He is my home, and my rock, he is just about everything. I absolutely LOVE us. We're the cutest. lol. We never fight, we are almost always on the same page and our relationship is easy, it’s easy because our love always comes first, no matter what. Also, he is very easy to love. ;)
We have our beautiful and amazing twin daughters Adrianna & Ariella, who are going to be 6 this year! 6!! Lets start by saying these two, are not only what makes our lives so much brighter and fuller everyday, but they are truly, our very best friends.
My little family isn’t perfect. Our love for each other, however, is!
So, here we are, living our semi-normal, imperfect life. Happy just going to work and school, or going to the gym, and taking kids to dance class…. and then suddenly, in the middle of our normal life, something horrible comes up. The word no one wants to say, because it’s too real and too scary.
CANCER.
What? How is this awful word part of our every day life now? Why has this horrible disease invaded our perfect, imperfect life? WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING?!
Josh has cancer. Josh has CANCER? JOSH HAS CANCER…Try saying that out loud with
out feeling like someone punched you in the stomach, because this must be some
kind of sick joke, like Ashton Kutcher is going to come around the corner and
say we are being punked, because this can’t be real. Is this REAL life right now? He’s only 34,
how does he have cancer? Why does he have cancer? Why us? So many questions. So
few answers.
So now that you know, I will get you all up to speed.
We found a mass Jan 31st. ER visit confirms there was a tumor and it needed to be removed and he would need to see an urologist ASAP. Cue all the doctor appointments, and a scheduled surgery for February 5th.
That week flew by and crept by all at once.
All the doctors kept talking cancer, Josh was about to go have surgery, we were missing work, and all 4 of us were super sick. It’s kind of a blur. But I remember our feelings; we were scared, anxious, and completely confused.
Josh had surgery that Friday; afterwards we went home and passed out, watching old episodes of Twilight Zone…. Nothing like watching a show about being in an alternate reality when you feel like you are an episode, yourself. Lol.
Anyway, then it was time to just wait for the phone call… is it cancerous or not, and if it is, what is our plan? What do we have to do? The answers couldn’t come soon enough.
Again, the following weeks are fuzzy, but…
My family completely fell apart.
February 2016, hardest month to date. I was sick, Josh was sick, the girls were sick.
With a couple ER visits for the girls, due to strep, I was puking because my nerves were shot and I had no sleep. I was too worried about Josh and the results and the sick kids…
The storm had cometh STRONG. And it wasn’t over…
Josh was having more pain than they said he would have.
We waited 2 FREAKING weeks before we heard anything from doctor or pathology. Mind you, they said it would only take 3-4 days max!
Can we talk about how insanely awful our anxiety was those 2 weeks? All we could think about was,
Is it cancer?
How bad is it?
Is he going to need chemo or radiation or any of the other scary cancer stuff?
We had so many thoughts racing through our head.
Then we find out, yep, the gut wrenching results we didn’t want…it’s cancerous. We went in for an appointment to get staples out and the urologist gave us our plan and what steps to take next. Which was to see an oncologist.
Between the staple removal and the first oncologist appointment, Josh was fine and seemed to be getting better and then he wasn’t. He wasn’t breathing normally. His fingers and hands were turning blue; he also had the cold sweats and couldn’t stop shivering. He was super pale and didn’t look good at all. It was awful, and super scary.
So guess what? Another ER trip, (gosh, these nurses and doctors should have our own room at this point) Turns out one of his lungs was deflated and he had fluid in his left lung. (Although the doctor scared the crap out of us and said it was blood clots at first, I hate that doctor, now. She gave us all the worst-case scenarios and had me terrified over night before his scheduled CT scan the next morning. Because, HELLO blood clots in the lungs, EMERGENCY SITUTATION.) So I stayed up ALLLL night listening to him breathe. There was no way I was going to sleep that night. UGH! Good times. Anyway, it turned out to NOT be clots, so thank god. But, still fluid in the lungs, not great news either. So we have been dealing with that. Now fast forward through this hell of a month to the other day…
Our first Oncologist appointment,
We pull up to this building…the cancer center…ugh. As we are walking up, we notice, its nothing but seniors coming out of those doors, and I just had this huge feeling like WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. We walk through the burnt orange automatic doors and the strong smell of mildew and sadness is in the air. We walk into the cancer center wing… its all dimly lit, a larger waiting room than most, I can tell they wanted it to be inviting and calm, but instead I got the feeling of depressing, like you’re in the waiting room for death and also too much of the color burnt orange. We are waiting to be called, and we hear the nurses’ talking about who has the best fast food French fries? Burger king, Mcdonald’s or Arby’s, and all we can think is…ummm we are in a cancer center and these healthcare providers are talking about fast food? Lol. Wtf?? We laughed and again thought, where’s Ashton?
Anyway, back to all the info. We find out he has Stage 1B Cancer. It is not the lowest kind but not the worst either. But due to the nature of his cancer and the location and how close it was to the bloodline and lymph nodes. We had 3 options.
1) Assume surgery got it all and just have scans done every 2 months and keep a close eye on him.
2) Chemo. Do a few rounds and then only have scans every 6 months and check ups every 3.
3) Surgeries again, take out all the lymph nodes just to be safe.
Now, due to the fast growing cancer he has, and the location of the tumor being so close to the bloodline, if we even missed one cancer cell option 1 was too much of a risk for potential spreading and, not to mention the amount of radiation his body would take with that many scans, he would end up having cancer pop up somewhere else. Option 3 was too extreme for this scenario. So that leaves us with chemo.
Scary, old chemo.
He will be going through a few rounds of chemo starting on the 14th and it will be 6 weeks of chemo treatments. He is probably going to have some of the side effects, but hopefully he wont get them all, because he isn’t doing a ton of rounds. We are hoping he will fly right through it and the meds won’t hit him super hard. Every person is different. So we wont know until we know.
Our new road now includes, chemo, it includes an anti inflammatory diet, it includes massive lifestyle changes. It includes cancer. More importantly, it’s us as a family learning to live this new way of life. It is Josh and I trying to figure out how to tell our girls that daddy is sick and things are going to be different and how they have to be careful around him, and explain that it is medicine that’s making daddy’s hair fall out, or why daddy is sleepy or not feeling good. How do you parent through this? I find this to be the hardest task of all…Our happy, innocent and joyful babies have to learn about something so horrible so young, it breaks my heart. Then for me, I also have to figure out how to be a strong partner for him. How will I not completely fall apart doing both of these things? I’m not sure yet. But I will keep you posted. Everyone reading this is part of our support system. And we need all of the positivity we can get.
Josh is an amazing human. He’s an incredible daddy, and a wonderful partner. He is a great friend to so many! He doesn’t deserve this, no one does. So we are going fight like hell to be strong and be positive and hope for the best. He should be ok after this, but our life won’t be the same. We will always have to do check ups and wonder if his headache is really just a headache or if a stomach ache is just a stomach ache… The cancer is there. So, we will always have to be aware.
This may be a new road, and a new way of life, for RIGHT NOW. I refuse for this to be our future. We are going to get through this and this can just be a small crappy chapter in our perfect-imperfect life.
We appreciate all the love and support from everyone. I’ll try and keep people updated as much as possible, through this platform. It’s much easier to do versus making several hundred phone calls a day. Love you, all. Send your love and good vibes our way. #THISBLOWS #FUCKCANCER #LOVE #POSITIVITYISKEY
This new road we are about to embark on may be super scary, and anxiety ridden with all of the unknowns, but I will remain by Josh’s side during every dark and scary path we face. We have remained a team during every moment of good and bad, without falter, and that will never change.
Josh and I have been together for 8 years. This man is my other half. My puzzle piece, my partner in crime. He is my home, and my rock, he is just about everything. I absolutely LOVE us. We're the cutest. lol. We never fight, we are almost always on the same page and our relationship is easy, it’s easy because our love always comes first, no matter what. Also, he is very easy to love. ;)
We have our beautiful and amazing twin daughters Adrianna & Ariella, who are going to be 6 this year! 6!! Lets start by saying these two, are not only what makes our lives so much brighter and fuller everyday, but they are truly, our very best friends.
My little family isn’t perfect. Our love for each other, however, is!
So, here we are, living our semi-normal, imperfect life. Happy just going to work and school, or going to the gym, and taking kids to dance class…. and then suddenly, in the middle of our normal life, something horrible comes up. The word no one wants to say, because it’s too real and too scary.
CANCER.
What? How is this awful word part of our every day life now? Why has this horrible disease invaded our perfect, imperfect life? WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING?!
So now that you know, I will get you all up to speed.
We found a mass Jan 31st. ER visit confirms there was a tumor and it needed to be removed and he would need to see an urologist ASAP. Cue all the doctor appointments, and a scheduled surgery for February 5th.
That week flew by and crept by all at once.
All the doctors kept talking cancer, Josh was about to go have surgery, we were missing work, and all 4 of us were super sick. It’s kind of a blur. But I remember our feelings; we were scared, anxious, and completely confused.
Josh had surgery that Friday; afterwards we went home and passed out, watching old episodes of Twilight Zone…. Nothing like watching a show about being in an alternate reality when you feel like you are an episode, yourself. Lol.
Anyway, then it was time to just wait for the phone call… is it cancerous or not, and if it is, what is our plan? What do we have to do? The answers couldn’t come soon enough.
Again, the following weeks are fuzzy, but…
My family completely fell apart.
February 2016, hardest month to date. I was sick, Josh was sick, the girls were sick.
With a couple ER visits for the girls, due to strep, I was puking because my nerves were shot and I had no sleep. I was too worried about Josh and the results and the sick kids…
The storm had cometh STRONG. And it wasn’t over…
Josh was having more pain than they said he would have.
We waited 2 FREAKING weeks before we heard anything from doctor or pathology. Mind you, they said it would only take 3-4 days max!
Can we talk about how insanely awful our anxiety was those 2 weeks? All we could think about was,
Is it cancer?
How bad is it?
Is he going to need chemo or radiation or any of the other scary cancer stuff?
We had so many thoughts racing through our head.
Then we find out, yep, the gut wrenching results we didn’t want…it’s cancerous. We went in for an appointment to get staples out and the urologist gave us our plan and what steps to take next. Which was to see an oncologist.
Between the staple removal and the first oncologist appointment, Josh was fine and seemed to be getting better and then he wasn’t. He wasn’t breathing normally. His fingers and hands were turning blue; he also had the cold sweats and couldn’t stop shivering. He was super pale and didn’t look good at all. It was awful, and super scary.
So guess what? Another ER trip, (gosh, these nurses and doctors should have our own room at this point) Turns out one of his lungs was deflated and he had fluid in his left lung. (Although the doctor scared the crap out of us and said it was blood clots at first, I hate that doctor, now. She gave us all the worst-case scenarios and had me terrified over night before his scheduled CT scan the next morning. Because, HELLO blood clots in the lungs, EMERGENCY SITUTATION.) So I stayed up ALLLL night listening to him breathe. There was no way I was going to sleep that night. UGH! Good times. Anyway, it turned out to NOT be clots, so thank god. But, still fluid in the lungs, not great news either. So we have been dealing with that. Now fast forward through this hell of a month to the other day…
Our first Oncologist appointment,
We pull up to this building…the cancer center…ugh. As we are walking up, we notice, its nothing but seniors coming out of those doors, and I just had this huge feeling like WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. We walk through the burnt orange automatic doors and the strong smell of mildew and sadness is in the air. We walk into the cancer center wing… its all dimly lit, a larger waiting room than most, I can tell they wanted it to be inviting and calm, but instead I got the feeling of depressing, like you’re in the waiting room for death and also too much of the color burnt orange. We are waiting to be called, and we hear the nurses’ talking about who has the best fast food French fries? Burger king, Mcdonald’s or Arby’s, and all we can think is…ummm we are in a cancer center and these healthcare providers are talking about fast food? Lol. Wtf?? We laughed and again thought, where’s Ashton?
Anyway, back to all the info. We find out he has Stage 1B Cancer. It is not the lowest kind but not the worst either. But due to the nature of his cancer and the location and how close it was to the bloodline and lymph nodes. We had 3 options.
1) Assume surgery got it all and just have scans done every 2 months and keep a close eye on him.
2) Chemo. Do a few rounds and then only have scans every 6 months and check ups every 3.
3) Surgeries again, take out all the lymph nodes just to be safe.
Now, due to the fast growing cancer he has, and the location of the tumor being so close to the bloodline, if we even missed one cancer cell option 1 was too much of a risk for potential spreading and, not to mention the amount of radiation his body would take with that many scans, he would end up having cancer pop up somewhere else. Option 3 was too extreme for this scenario. So that leaves us with chemo.
Scary, old chemo.
He will be going through a few rounds of chemo starting on the 14th and it will be 6 weeks of chemo treatments. He is probably going to have some of the side effects, but hopefully he wont get them all, because he isn’t doing a ton of rounds. We are hoping he will fly right through it and the meds won’t hit him super hard. Every person is different. So we wont know until we know.
Our new road now includes, chemo, it includes an anti inflammatory diet, it includes massive lifestyle changes. It includes cancer. More importantly, it’s us as a family learning to live this new way of life. It is Josh and I trying to figure out how to tell our girls that daddy is sick and things are going to be different and how they have to be careful around him, and explain that it is medicine that’s making daddy’s hair fall out, or why daddy is sleepy or not feeling good. How do you parent through this? I find this to be the hardest task of all…Our happy, innocent and joyful babies have to learn about something so horrible so young, it breaks my heart. Then for me, I also have to figure out how to be a strong partner for him. How will I not completely fall apart doing both of these things? I’m not sure yet. But I will keep you posted. Everyone reading this is part of our support system. And we need all of the positivity we can get.
Josh is an amazing human. He’s an incredible daddy, and a wonderful partner. He is a great friend to so many! He doesn’t deserve this, no one does. So we are going fight like hell to be strong and be positive and hope for the best. He should be ok after this, but our life won’t be the same. We will always have to do check ups and wonder if his headache is really just a headache or if a stomach ache is just a stomach ache… The cancer is there. So, we will always have to be aware.
This may be a new road, and a new way of life, for RIGHT NOW. I refuse for this to be our future. We are going to get through this and this can just be a small crappy chapter in our perfect-imperfect life.
We appreciate all the love and support from everyone. I’ll try and keep people updated as much as possible, through this platform. It’s much easier to do versus making several hundred phone calls a day. Love you, all. Send your love and good vibes our way. #THISBLOWS #FUCKCANCER #LOVE #POSITIVITYISKEY
We love you guys so much! We will keep sending our love daily! Keep up the fight Josh!
ReplyDeleteWe love you all. If you guys need a weekend, just let us know and the girls can come hang out with Dawn and I. Stay strong. Josh is a fighter and you guys will come out stronger on the other end of this. Xoxo
ReplyDeleteI love you guys!.... And, btw, Arby's.
ReplyDeleteDonny
Wow Angelica. Wow. I cant even put into words what I would like to say... Your all amazing and strong. So strong. Please just know I had a friend near and dear to my heart fight for 2 years breast cancer at age 32 and she won. She had hars moments and times of insane pain and sadness. But she never gave up!!! Dont you ever feel like this is going to take over your family. Your strong and fighters and will beat this! I know I cant help much from outta state but I'm sending lots of love and prayers your way. If you do ever need anything, please jist know you always have lots of people out there wanting to help. Love you and your family... And wishing you all the best. I cant say I have ever read something like this...thank you for reminding the rest of us not to take things for granted. Thank you for being brave! Really beave! Thank you for having faith and love in yoyour friends and family enough to share this heart filled update on everything. With love always, Heather
ReplyDeleteWow Angelica. Wow. I cant even put into words what I would like to say... Your all amazing and strong. So strong. Please just know I had a friend near and dear to my heart fight for 2 years breast cancer at age 32 and she won. She had hars moments and times of insane pain and sadness. But she never gave up!!! Dont you ever feel like this is going to take over your family. Your strong and fighters and will beat this! I know I cant help much from outta state but I'm sending lots of love and prayers your way. If you do ever need anything, please jist know you always have lots of people out there wanting to help. Love you and your family... And wishing you all the best. I cant say I have ever read something like this...thank you for reminding the rest of us not to take things for granted. Thank you for being brave! Really beave! Thank you for having faith and love in yoyour friends and family enough to share this heart filled update on everything. With love always, Heather
ReplyDelete