Cancer Files: What a Husband Should Never Have to Do

There really is a different version of "love, honor, and cherish" than you think of when you are in the romantic attraction of a new marriage.  When we stand there on our wedding day with so much hope and excitement for a future different than it has been before.  That version includes things like blood and ooze, fear and uneasiness.  No husband signs up for that on their wedding day!

This version of love is so much more than I ever knew I was getting that day long ago when I was just worried that everything that was planned for my big day was going to "go off without a hitch" so to speak.  I have said it before, if any of us would have known what we were really getting into in marriage, I am not sure there would be as many married people.  That is why in God's grace, He doesn't give us the whole story about marriage until we experience it.  On the flip side though, there are amazing and wonderful things you can't even imagine on that wedding day that you get to experience too!  Which is a fun little bonus!

And here is the truth...love is patient, and kind, it doesn't envy or boast.  It does not seek its own, not easily provoked and thinks no evil...love bears ALL things, believes ALL things, hopes ALL things, endures ALL things.  Love never fails.  This makes a nice little saying in the wedding program that you hand out to your guest on the big day, but does anyone REALLY know what that means?  I am thinking with divorce statistics as they are today, probably not.

So, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when I am going through life thinking things are going pretty well and I find myself on my bed while my husband is packing three feet of soaked daikon strips into a dime sized incision on my right breast right after looking at me with an unfamiliar expression and saying "I really don't think I can do this!"  Yes, I am bawling - IT HURTS, all the while saying to him "this is not your fault that I am crying, you are doing GREAT!"

The facts are, a week and a half before my "final" surgery to finish up the cosmetic things involved in the reconstruction, I develop a hemotoma on the right side (which had been healing wonderfully and not causing me any problems since the cancer was removed on August 15th!).  Within two days, infection had set in and gave me what I thought was the flu.  Not so, after the wound was drained and I woke up today, I felt GREAT!

So, not final surgery coming up next week.  Instead he is going in to see why I started bleeding, clean out the wound and stitch it up.  He says this happens.  Funny, I didn't see it in the breast cancer manual (and that thing is THICK!)  Doc did tell me that he will still be able to work on the left side and "tweak" there so all is not lost.  Then, if all goes well there will be one more surgery.

Thank you for all your prayers, there are so many great people who I love so much who have come beside me and encouraged.  Sometimes it is just that kind word of encouragement that lifts your spirits.  Lifted spirits are more important than I ever knew before this whole experience.