Balanced Living with Cancer

My husband has cancer.  The disease and his treatments have dictated the last five years of our lives.  He was diagnosed in 2002 with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, CLL, (a type of nonHodgkin’s lymphoma), usually considered an old man’s cancer.  He was 39 at the time and a partner in one of the largest private gastroenterology medical groups in northern California. It was three weeks before our third child was born and a sweet time in our lives.  Our other children were ages 4 and 7.

After the initial treatments we had two good years with ‘no detectable disease’.  Since Labor Day Weekend 2007, when the lymphoma showed its ugly return, it’s been a brutal ride – no other way to describe it.  We have endured 19 rounds of chemotherapy and its aftereffects, over 90 blood transfusions, full body radiation and its associated illnesses, four months of living away from our children during a bone marrow transplant, middle of the night runs to the emergency room for stomach bleeds and unexplained fevers, a ten day coma from an infection, seven leg surgeries to remove infected bone, walkers, wheelchairs, and reconfiguring our house to accommodate his treatment induced physical disabilities. We have also felt the emotional sting that came when his medical practice group he helped create 13 years prior decided he was not partner worthy anymore.

We’ve lost friends, we’ve rekindled old, we’ve made new, and we’ve felt the sadness when fellow transplant recipients did not survive.  We’ve watched as my husband’s former patients, who would always exuberantly thank him for his medical care, stood speechless, shocked by his changed facial appearance due to the transplant induced graft versus host disease.  We’ve overheard other’s ask, “What’s wrong with him?” and then had to explain to our youngest why they ask.

Many people have told us we must share our story.  I haven’t been so sure. It is personal, it is ours.  Then recently a friend shared a few sentences from Annie Dillard’s book, The Writing Life. “The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.  Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.  You open your safe and find ashes.”  These words struck a place deep in my heart.

As I write about our life, I hope you do too.  I think that together we can make living with cancer more approachable.  I too am looking for answers to some very difficult questions.

So, welcome! I hope you find this blog worth the time you read and I hope you join me by sharing your thoughts, real life experiences and problem solving, as we strive to find balance living with cancer.

Copyright © 2011 Jeannie Moloo. All Rights Reserved.