A Husband’s View (part 6)

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A Husband’s View (part 6)

Michelle is now halfway through the scheduled amount of chemo sessions. She is already growing tired of these drugs that have begun to weaken her, both mentally and physically. However, this feeling worn down received a bit of excitement shortly after the third chemo treatment. Michelle was doing a self exam on her breast when I suddenly heard Michelle cry out, “baby, come quick.” Well, as you can imagine, I near broke my fool neck trying to get to where she was as quickly as possible. She took my hand and held it to her breast and asked me to feel. “The tumor has shrunk!” she excitedly proclaimed. And I can honestly say that without a doubt that the tumor had indeed shrunk. The chemo was doing exactly what it was designed to do. Shrink cancer tumors! We were both very excited. It was reason enough for a small celebration before the affects of chemo started taking Its usual toll on Michelle’s body. While we were both excited about the shrinkage of the tumor. We both could not help to begin questioning whether or not that breast could be saved after all. I think deep down we both knew better than to think such a thing. But it is so easy to get your hopes up when you really want something bad enough. And believe me, Michelle really wanted to keep her breast if at all possible. In reality, some of the reason for the chemo in the first place was to try to shrink the tumor enough so that the near-future mastectomy would be less complicated and also offer a higher success rate. As men, sometimes we forget that most women shutter to think of losing even one thing that identifies them with the female of the human race. And this was certainly Michelle. I would imaging being reminded on a daily basis that you are going to lose your breast, is magnified that much more after you have just lost all of your hair! So I would often try and take take her mind off of the thought of losing her breast by doing something silly to make her laugh. I wanted to do anything to take her mind off of things. I could tell that she was so fatigued and just ready to finish up these treatments.

Not only was Michelle growing more fatigued. But, I, myself was growing more worn down by the day. There were several mornings during Michelle’s treatments that I just did not want to get out of bed. I knew how tough the impending day was going to be and that made me just want co cover my head and go back to sleep. But luckily, those thoughts never lasted more than a minute or two before I literally hoisted myself out of bed to prepare myself to care for Michelle. She depended on me and I was more than happy to care for her during her lowest days. Believe it or not, the caring of Michelle often made me almost forget that I had Cerebral Palsy. Sure, we had family and friends to drop by from time to time to lend a helping hand. But most of the time it was on me to do what had to be done, with the occasional help from my own home health care provider. I am so thankful that God had put me in that situation to be a helper…to be a provider. I am thankful that He was there guiding me the whole journey. It is amazing what one can do when you have God leading the way!