Well, here we are. Welcome to my blog everyone.
I seriously am assuming that everyone reading this already knows me but here is a quick introduction in case you don’t. I’m Annie; 52 year old mom, grandmother, radiologic technologist who specialized in cardiac Cath lab and electrophysiology for almost 30 years, and my newest descriptor…widow. I need to acknowledge that this is the first time I’ve used that word to describe myself. It’s still hard to wrap my head around, to believe this whole nightmare happened. But yet here I am, in the after.
I was with my husband for over 20 years. He was my best friend, my partner, my soulmate. We worked together, volunteered together, did our best with a blended family together, basically everything together. We built a life that we truly loved. But then the universe decided to correct me on something. You see, I was a firm believer in “you have to go out and make the life you want” and “ you make yourself own happiness in life.” You know, all the motivational and inspirational quotes that people who truly believe that we have some control over things spew. I would post them on social media as I judged people who would complain about their dissatisfaction or unhappiness with their lives.
Then it happened, the universe punched us in the face and stole those lives that we loved so much, had worked so hard for. For me, that punch came in the form of a text that said “ I had a seizure. Am in the ED. Please call.” It was December 10th, 2018. I’ll never forget the date for several reasons. December 9th was my late mom’s birthday and this particular one consisted of a housewarming party for a lovely family friend who was picking up the pieces after a divorce, a birthday party for a granddaughter we were finally getting to know, and a birthday dinner for my son who has been such a rock in my life. It was a day filled with family, friends, so much love and celebration. It was also the last day of the lives that we knew. We had no idea.
Mister (a sweet and funny story I will share at some point) had started a new job at a hospital about 2 hours from our home base about 2 months before. We found a beautiful apartment near his job and had started to settle in to a new routine. He would leave for work early Monday morning. I would stay behind to pack up for our week at the apartment and to give out dog Baxter more time at the house. So the text came on that Monday morning after an attempt to call me. I was outside with Mr.Brown ( don’t you all have several nicknames for your animals?) doing what we all do when we don’t know any better, complaining about something completely meaningless..completely inconsequential. I mean, how dare he take so long to poop. Didn’t he know I had things to do? Why does it have to take him half an hour to find the right spot? But then it finally happened. Yay! The dog pooped so I could head back inside. I picked up my phone and there it was, the text that would change everything forever.
There’s so much to tell all of you about, so much that happened between then and now. So much of it I remember in great detail, too much probably. Other days are a blur. All of them passed in shock. But yet here I am, in the after.
That’s what we started to call it shortly after his diagnosis. When we had to talk about it, the reality of glioblastoma. You can google the word, glioblastoma. You don’t need any formal medical training to see the first thing that will come up is “average survival is 12-18 months.” Statistically speaking 25% of glioblastoma patients survive one year. 5% survive more than 5 years. But then there are the rare unicorns, the less than 1% that get more than 10 years. So that’s what you hope for, pray for, beg the universe for. Please, please universe, please let us be in that less than 1%. Please let us be unicorns.
But as time goes by; time filled with craniotomies, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, physical and occupational therapy, endless research and doctors appointments, endless hours of driving and crying reality starts to creep in. You start to acknowledge that there will be an after and there are things you need to talk about, decisions that need to be made. So it really started as “the after part.” He or I would say “can we talk about the after part?” Because no one, and I mean no one wants to start a conversation with their partner with “so after you/I die….” No one wants to have any of those conversations with anyone they love. So it made it slightly better, minutely less painful, just a tiny bit easier to start whatever conversation that needed to happen when we knew one of us was going to be here without the other way sooner than we had expected.
So here I am guys, in the after. Still standing most days. I’m a little bung up (please google if not from Maine). I’ve got a hair trigger fight or flight. I feel like I’ve been broken into a million pieces and am starting to slowly glue myself back together. And I now realize that when those pieces are finally back together that the finished project may look nothing like it did before. But that’s okay.
I needed to start writing things down; the stories, the memories, the giant tangle of thoughts that are clogging up my brain now. I’m hoping it will quiet things down up there. Maybe I will some day sleep through the night, get some of my attention span back, maybe finish reading a book or two. At the very least maybe the constant spinning in my head will stop.
I promise not every post will be sad. We shared an amazing life together so I also want to share stories about all of that, all of the wonderful and crazy things we did together. Obviously some will be sad, some will be gut wrenching, and some will contain triggers for some of you. I will try to warn you about triggers but let’s be honest, I won’t always know or be able to do that. Please know that I will try.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. Thanks for meeting me here in the after.
