Episode 6: Positivity in the Midst of Pain

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We are all dying. 

Some of us can see it coming but most of us don’t know when it will finally happen.

Cancer, for most people, is associated with death.

The possibility of death makes some people begin the dying process before it actually happens.

That is unacceptable in my house.

When I first learned of my husband’s thyroid cancer diagnosis, death just wasn’t an option for me. It wasn’t acceptable and I wasn’t going to grieve when there was too much to do to try to make sure he stayed alive. 

We did not deny the possibility of death but we didn’t act like it was given a fast pass to get to our front door.

I wanted our house to be as positive a place as possible for my husband. That meant that I had to have some serious conversations with people. We both decided that we weren’t going to entertain having people come to the house and act like they are seeing him for the last time. 

Isn’t it funny how when you have cancer people you haven’t seen in years give you a call or want to come see you? I get it, someone in your life is sick and you want to talk to them to let them know you are thinking of them. But that just shows how much we take each other’s existence for granted. He could have very easily been hit by a car and died the day before and they never would have had the opportunity to check in. I realized that some times these connections were solely for the other person wether they realized it or not. 

We would not entertain the death reaction. People who acted like he was going to die were told they could feel that way but not show they felt that way to him. I got some negative feedback from some of those conversations and others realized the importance of what I was telling them. I didn’t care if I made people angry. You just couldn’t talk to him or come see him and act like he was on his way out. 

Here’s why. There is nothing worse than finding out you have a scary disease and then find the strength to find hope. It was equally hard for me to find hope when I was the one telling people about the disease. It was hard for me to bounce back from the conversations I had with people who were told and immediately reacted in an overly emotional way. That put me in a position where I had to hold on to the little bit of hope I had while the person in front of me was outwardly showing me they had no hope he was going to make it. 

My husband and I were both sad. We did a lot of crying together but we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it through and how to enjoy life even if just moments at a time. We started watching a lot of things that would make us laugh because it would make us feel better. We would go out and do things even when we didn’t feel like it. I think we both knew that if we gave in we would sink into a severe depression. 

Both of us understood that hope is what we had and we weren’t going to let go of it easily. So in order to do that I had to filter out people who would chip away at that. 

There’s nothing better than hearing your spouse laugh when life is weighing so heavily on him. The week he had his thyroid removed Jimmy Fallon took over The Tonight Show and just watching for that hour in the middle of the night bought a moment in time where we could forget about what we were sitting in the middle of. 

I don’t regret holding on to that, demanding that for him. I don’t think that there is any reason for people to feel they can judge how a couple navigates though cancer together. They have to find what works for them and their decisions need to be respected. 

The one thing I refuse to do is sacrifice my husband’s health and healing to make someone else comfortable. We can just respectfully disagree and continue loving him. 

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