Relay

http://livermore.patch.com/articles/when-cancer-hits-home-a-good-reason-to-join-relay-for-life

When Cancer Hits Home: A Good Reason to Join Relay for Life

Tri-Valley Moms Council member shares her family's cancer story to rally support for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

By Kathleen Schoening | Email the author | March 30, 2011

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When cancer hits home...

Sunday, March 29, 2009.

Cancer. My husband has B-cell lymphoma.

He is almost 42 years old and we have an almost 3-year-old daughter.

How did cancer enter the equation?

We went from trying to having another child to this. From infertility treatment to a bone biopsy in a blink of an eye (before starting chemo, we will be banking sperm for a later use, God willing).

Someone mentioned to me that people are in our corner. I, we, are not cowered in a corner but are on the front lines in God's hands. I have said that cancer is a part of our lives but will not be our lives. We are young and strong. Clark's cancer has a survival rate of 70 to 80 percent. These are good odds.

The doctors said this will get worse before it gets better, so we know it will be a bumpy road, but we know crisis management. After all, both of us worked in the banking industry for years.

This road will not be pretty, but it will be our journey to getting Clark well.

I read those words now as tears spill down my face. So many of you know only part of the story. How I knew Clark had cancer for a week before it was confirmed.

Clark had had three biopsies, essentially three surgeries. At one biopsy, the surgeon at Hayward Kaiser said to me over the gurney that Clark was on, "You know, the only reason we are doing another biopsy is because we know he has cancer. We just want to know what kind."

I was stunned. I had no reason to doubt the surgeon and in fact out of everything that we had been told up until then it was the only thing that made sense.

Of course, Clark had lost the ability to move his arm almost completely and holding our child was out of the question. No doctor had said it before then and no one had prepared us. Eight months and FINALLY we were getting true answers.

Clark was awake on the gurney but did not really hear the conversation. I told him after, but no one wants to hear they have cancer. In fact, we did not receive confirmation for a week.

What a journey to heaven and hell it has been. My husband was and is a true cancer soldier. No one knows that journey of cancer until they have been given the boots to wear.

Nothing in life could have prepared me to be a caregiver of a cancer patient and a mom of a young toddler at the same time.

Nothing in life prepared me to want to take care of my husband and at times fight what seemed an inept medical system. Like when Clark's chemo was going to be delayed, I raised every flag I could to get treatment sooner because his cancer was aggressive, his tumor was growing quite large. For me, time was ticking and cancer was killing my husband. I was not willing to let someone else stand in the line of Clark's treatment.

As a wife, that is what you do.

As a mom, I told Emma that Clark had cancer. It was like telling Emma that Clark had the flu. I did not and do not want Emma afraid of the word "cancer" and I did not want her to be with others and hear that Daddy had cancer. It was important she hear it from us and know it was going to be fine.

Now, two years later, Clark is cancer free. I never knew the words I wrote back then would be so true: "It will get worse before it gets better."

Our life now is richer with love and time, two things you can never have enough of.

Join us.
Relay of Life of Livermore
American Cancer Society
June 25, 9 a.m.
Livermore High School
Contact me for more information,
Kathleen Schoening