Better Days: Powering Through

Hebrews 6:19 “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;” 

As I power through my story, I see some as a hard read and a lot is a hard write but I power through to give you the meat of the story as rich in detail as I vividly remember.

It has been four years since I found a lump in my breast, two years since diagnosis, and one year that the cosmos sucked away from me and I’m trying to piece the last year together to make sense of it all. If it’s a hard read for you, imagine living through it and cleaning up the mess you find.

I think I want to put my husband on a pedestal for a bit. When you marry and say words like ‘in sickness and in health’, you are not ever thinking that the day would arrive and you’d have to pull up your britches and show what you’re made of. Many times its the woman who comes through for the husband and quite often there are times when the husband has to stand up, be a man and take care of his wife in ways he’d never imagine.

When my husband went blind in 2009 I was hit with responsibilities I never knew before. I had to become his eyes. I was always the homemaker but he was the breadwinner and he was shot down as he became a disabled person, dependent on the money he put into the system. Dependent on me, in hopes I would stand by my man. We sailed through that storm and came out in calming seas as he had a cornea transplant and part of his sight was restored. Smooth sailing afterward, right? Wrong. 

Not long after his sight was restored, he lost his one eye because it was beyond repair. The system made us wait two years for the coverage of the operation and by that time it was too late. 

That is when my health started to fail. Not recognizing aches and pains for what they were, we just strolled along twenty-twelve and thirteen. Not without a bunch of doctor visits, mind you, until the dastardly lump made its appearance in twenty-fifteen and it was as if we were standing on top of a mountain being forced to slide all the way to the rocky bottom.

Twenty-fifteen was a year of loss. I lost three family members, one being my dad and my hubby lost an uncle. My medical needs would have to wait. When I finally had a chance to face the music, the diagnosis was grim. The doctor’s made sure fear would win this battle and that my God was not more powerful than they were. They LAUGHED at my faith. By twenty-eighteen I had the chance to at least smile in THEIR faces showing them that my God IS more powerful than they are! God and I are winning the battle.

My husband would step up to the plate and take on the nursing and caregiving. His mind wobbled from having the task of putting our beloved dog to sleep then BAM, I get worse and too much was tossed on his shoulders. I prayed. I had friends and family praying, not only for me but for him and my son who had to take on caring for their now disabled wife and mother.

In his panic, he would wash, dry and fold clothes, rearrange drawers, vacuum, and steam clean floors. He would do any and everything to occupy his mind as he dealt with this new routine he was forced into. Like I said, no one thinks that those words ‘in sickness and in health’ would slap them upside the head full force and hold them accountable, but rest assured, it will happen, often times in a quiet day! 

I was home from rehab, he would now readjust and hope beyond hope he was up to the task. While his mom wanted to help her baby and shoulder some of the burdens, he knew this was something that he’d have to do alone. A meal here and there from mom but the rest, lay at his feet wrinkled and unable to be folded. 

Weeks would pass and he struggled to remember the water or the grocery list, or place the claw close to me, or my walker or wheelchair within reach; sure he’d forget one or two things but would remember so much more. He was fighting this like a boxing champ in the fifteenth round, he was tired and worn, but would come out winning with a total KO!

Many men will say ‘I’d do it for my wife’ and many women will say ‘I’d do it for my husband’ but in truth, none of us know what we’re made of until something tragic happens and you have no choice but to stand up and fulfill that vow you took.

The past six months have taken their toll on us but as man and wife, circumstance has made us stronger as a couple. Every day that passes he sees in me the caretaker and homemaker he married, and even more so I see the husband I had every bit of faith in when I uttered the words sickness and health. 

May this be the year we both get to dance with health, we deserve to dance! 

Pss. 149:3 "Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp."