For those who have wondered how Jim has handled this....

Later today is my 6th chemo treatment (2nd of the Taxol drug) what I learned from the first Taxol treatment was that even though I have an unusually high pain tolerance I will be asking for something a lil stronger to help with the pain this time! If it was just me at home, I would just work through it (the bone pain is intense at times), but because my children have to witness it from time to time, I can't let that happen again........Did I mention my middle Daughter moved back home over this past weekend?? She will be 21 in February and like me, learns life lessons the hard way and a bunch of young 20 something year olds living all together isn't as much fun as it was when they all first moved in together almost 2 years ago.....another "I told you so" spoken and a welcome home! Well, actually just her things moved back home and she spends almost every night at her Boyfriends place.....Oh, and I am the Grandmother to 2 mutant  (extremely large) white hamsters....Violet and Lily.....funny how they don't get spend the night at her Boyfriends huh?.....Lily decided to tour my home on her own this past Sunday afternoon and evening while the rest of the family watched the Chicago Bears football game at my Sisters....after 5 minutes of returning to my home and my 14 year old Son screaming "Lily is gone" and while I was changing into my Jammies for the night......Lily decided to exit my master bathroom and give me a lil thrill I wasn't ready for!........took almost 10 minutes for my heart rate to go back to normal after that! lol

I have a good number of male readers that have been following my journal from time to time and have wondered how my Husband Jim has been dealing with or handling watching the Woman he promised "forever" to, battle cancer....First let me tell you I fell in love with and married a Man's Man.....very strong, very masculine and one who loves me so much it scared him in the beginning..... He was with me when I was prematurely informed I had very aggressive (cancerous) tumors via my Radiologist (and who I will be forever grateful for the early heads up..you know us Mom's we put everybody else first and without that early heads up) Who knows how long I would of put off going to my Oncologist if he (the radiologist) didn't tell me "Don't wait, do it now!!"

Jim has been my soft place to land and my rock for many years and he meant every vow on our wedding day....he has seen me atmybest and seen me at my worse (even before my cancer diagnosis! lol) and has loved me unconditionally every moment since we first fell in love at first "date" back in 1986......we met in 1981 for the first time  and even though we both belonged to someone else I told my best friend at the time, that I didn't know how and I didn't know when, but I was going to marry that man some day and we finally did after becoming a couple in 1986 and then married in 1990. He had a 3 year old Daughter and I had a newborn Daughter (Melissa and Amanda) when it was finally our time and after we married we added two of our own to that mix (Rachel and Jimmy) and have been living happily ever after until my illness hit in July of this year.

That man has seen me scared and so very ill at times that only my eyes were able to watch him cross a room. He became the "rock" for the rest of my family during my 9 hour surgery and one week stay in the hospital....he watched them get ready to send me home early, learned how to change my bandages and my drains, then watched them try to stabilize me after my heart went into Atrial fibrillation and then moved me to the heart hospital where I had to continue the rest of my week stay at the hospital, he took care of my basic, every day needs while I was in the hospital where I never had to rely on the nursing staff or the "call button." he bathed me, fed me, soothed me, loved me and slept by my side every night, on a not so comfortable lounge chair, he laughed with me, he cried with me and he pushed me when just when I thought I couldn't take anymore......which seems to follow an every other week pattern during chemo! lol! He understood without words, that our intimacy would be challenged and neglected (which I know is hard for any hot blooded man! lol) but both of us know our love has more facets than just physical love anyway. He has seen me fall, crawl and be too sick and weak to cry, he has helped maintain some type of normalcy in our home for our children's sake,  gave up his hunting season, he has gone to the drug store up to 6 times in one day to buy stool softeners, laxatives, suppositories, enemas, finally a prescription phoned in by my Oncologist to just get back home again only to turn around and go back out for sanitary napkins and tampons for his teeange Daughter.......now that is love! lol lol lol  Like I said, I married a man's man but one who had no problem walking around the drug store and asking forhelp in locating these items when his wife was home, weak and bed ridden most of the time for the first few weeks following surgery and then 5 days a week following each chemo treatment since then. He has been with me at every Doctor's appointment and every chemo treatment and pushes me through every weak moment since diagnosis.

So this is the Man I fell in love with the very first time I saw him at the young age of 18, and who I knew I was destined to spend forever with and finally did get to start that forever with at the age of 23. Now here I am soon to be 44 (February) him 48, and I have more love and more respect for that Man, who has spent the last 20+ years of his life putting his love for me and his children before his own needs to give us a beautiful life and it is for him that I battle with all my might to beat this terrible disease, just to spend a lil more of forever with him and finish raising our last two babies (14 & 15) and maybe I can be around a lil longer to spoil the hell out of future grandbabies to come.....nothing in life could be sweeter than a longer life with Jim and the following generations....that will be my every Christmas wish, every Birthday wish, every New Years resolution and every falling star wish the rest of my life.......how ever long I am meant to be.

Life couldn't get better than this...... only my health can and I'm working on that my friends......I'm working on that! ;)