This blog is something that I’ve wanted to do since Jeff (my husband) started his chemotherapy. He put a moratorium on picture taking during the chemo (understandable….his selfie game would not have been strong during it), but I wanted to document the journey somehow. I wanted some record of the joys, the struggles, the tears and the laughter (seriously, we are ALWAYS laughing about something). At the time, I was blogging on my personal blog and there are several posts dedicated to Jeff’s journey with cancer and how I was coping.

When Jeff was done with his chemotherapy, however, we both just wanted to get back to “normal” life and the idea of blogging about the whole cancer thing seemed intimidating and I was done being scared for the time being. The thing is, while there is never a “normal,” there is a comfortable routine that keeps you going day in and day out and life post-cancer is a weird experience. You realize that the entire world was moving forward around you while you were focused only on one thing: staying alive. Then you’re done with chemo or a surgery or whatever, and you’re expected to just kind of, move forward. Cancer and its aftermath are different for everyone and I am not ignorant enough to think that our experience will echo everyone around the world battling cancer. But, I do think in general getting back to a “normal” is a really difficult thing to do. Your entire life is irrevocably changed by this disease and picking up and living a “normal” moving on is a really bizarre and foreign concept. One day, you’re hooked up to a machine that simultaneously robs you of and gives you life and the next day, you’re in the car on the way to work. Just like that.

For me, moving on to “normal” was weird. While Jeff was doing his chemotherapy, my role was to take care of him. To take care of Malcolm. And when Jeff returned to work, my role shifted. I no longer had someone to take care of all day every day. While some would probably be ecstatic to have this freedom and would use the opportunity to take care of themselves, but not me. I wasn’t ready to take care of myself. I wanted to remain in my own little world where fat shielded me from anything bad happening. It became a sort of cushion, literally and figuratively and I just wanted to get away from cancer.

Still, I always knew that I would come back to the topic.  I am a writer, and it is through the act of writing that I begin the healing process. It is completely surreal having a husband fight for his life, but this experience has made me a stronger, more thoughtful person. I’ve learned so, so much from my experience with cancer and I am a far more grateful person today. Tomorrow definitely isn’t promised, and that’s a really hard lesson to learn before you hit 30. And it was also a very lonely lesson while it was being learned. It was terrifying and isolating and…fattening. So, as my husband is nearing two years of being cancer-free, I decided that I’m ready to open up again.

If I can make just one person out there feel less lonely, less isolated and maybe even a bit hopeful, then this blog will have done exactly what I hoped. I’m really excited to get this started, and I hope that you’ll share this journey with me.

Till next time,

Ashley