Marriage, Momming and Matt’s CRC

 When I told my husband I wanted to start a blog to encourage spousal advocacy for those suffering from cancer, he didn’t hesitate to say “yes”. 

Married in 2014, we have been through a lot. The purchase of two homes, daily life with two dogs and we had our first daughter in 2017. She’s our wild child. She can run a 14 minute mile and make you wonder if kids come with a 24 volt battery. 

When the pandemic hit we laid in bed watching a Harry Potter one weekend (our usual go to) and I voiced my hopes for another baby. He eventually agreed our daughter would benefit from a sibling, and weeks later we were pregnant. 

I taped his reaction to my positive pregnancy test, and the pregnancy was rough. Endless appointments and vomit. 

Then on my birthday at nine months pregnant we trekked to Lake Placid, NY so our four year old daughter could swim and my pelvis could benefit from the weightless effects of being submerged in a hotel pool.

Fast forward to a couple of days later, I’m miserable and my husband is miserable and we’re in the hospital emergency room preparing for an appendectomy. It wasn’t necessary. Because it wasn’t his appendix. It was stage four colon cancer. A disease that is predicted to become a huge issue amongst the younger cancer victims, killing because it remains undetected. You can’t detect what you aren’t looking for. They don’t market colonoscopies to the under forty crowd. 

So here we are now, a couple of surgeries. A colostomy. Half a dozen chemotherapy and immunotherapy  treatments. I’m here to provide the reality of it all. I want others with spouses suffering to know they aren’t alone (not in a cheesy way). I also want them to know that it’s normal to keep seeking a better answer than the one you got yesterday or today, keep advocating. Because even if you aren’t the cancer patient, you are equally affected in some ways. You feel it’s your fight. You speak in the collective “we”. I’m going to post the raw and honest truth. Because I wish someone would.