"Friends are angles who lift our feet when our wings are unable to fly...".
I don't know who wrote it, or remember even the first place I read it, but it has become a statement of truth for me as of late.
With the assistance of social media, it seems that almost everyone I have known my entire life, and people that I have yet to meet, know that I have been really sick for a very long time. The title of my blog kind of gives it away! I have been fighting cancer for the past 17 years. During that time, I have had over 30 cancer-related operations, including open heart surgery. I have had blood clots, transfusions and hundreds (really) of Xrays, Ct scans, MRI's, bone scans PET scans. I have been in the hospital for over a years' worth of time. I have been unable to walk, had to use a walker and/or cane, and was strapped to portable oxygen for several months. Cancer has prevented me from having a career of my own. And most of all, cancer is VERY expensive. Every three weeks, for the rest of my life, I will have a treatment of some type. Currently, each time I walk in for my treatment, our insurance company is billed five figures. Anyone who does the simple math can imagine the financial stress this has placed on our family.
This past month long, unplanned hospitalization, finally brought me and my husband to our knees. As if on cue, my angel friends flew in and surrounded us. I had one very brief, heartfelt conversation with a friend and literally hours later my families' miracle started to happen.
In the metastatic cancer community, there is a phenomena known as Survivor's Guilt. There sometimes comes a point in the survivor's life where we actually start to put a financial value to our lives. The summer before Tessa went off to college, this happened to me. Fighting this battle, of course, Ken and I have depleted our savings. Lord, our insurance premium alone is more than most household's mortgages, car payments and utilities...combined! But somehow, with God's grace, we have someway remained afloat. It was such a dark time for me that it was hard to justify in my mind, that enormous burden on Ken, as college expenses were coming up. His answer was to just work harder, and harder, and harder.
"Would they be better off without me?", 'Would it be easier for everybody if I just passed?","Had the kids become old enough that they didn't need me anymore?", "Should I keep up this endless day in and out pink battle?"...
At my darkest time is when I also was informed of what all of this chemo was doing to my body. I was being poisoned to fight the cancer, but now I was living long enough to fall victim to the long term side effects. My body was beginning to show the havoc that long term chemo reaps. With the support and love of my family, I was able to get through that very dark time, and I made a decision:
FIGHT.
The promise of this surgery in August, was to build a new core abdomen for the one that was falling apart inside of me. Seven large hernias are present due to fascia that was breaking down. Move muscle from here to there, physical therapy, etc. Only my insides were much worse than expected, the surgery was not a success. And then, HA-MRSA. Hospital acquired MRSA. And the fight of my life...
Back to my angel friends. Everyday meals were delivered. Mass cards, funny cards, serious cards, arrived daily to cheer and support me. Flowers and pink pumpkins, and mums left silently and anonymously outside our door. And at our bleakest hour, our family became the recipients of the most incredible generosity; donations were made to us to help carry us through the next few months. My angel friends set up a GoFundMe page and within days, I saw a mortgage payment paid, Hospital bed rental paid, an insurance premium kept in effect. Ken and I breathed...
My angel friends are from my school days, my single days and our married days. Friends and clients of Ken's, friends of Tessa and Torrie and friends who wish to remain anonymous.
Angels.
I live among angels.
This outpouring of love has brought a bright light to my family. We are filling our love tanks from you so that we may go back out and fill others' tanks. We have learned that true friendship knows no boundaries of time or distance. So many people have come into our light. It's funny, I am now dreaming so much about people from my years; I've always believed our angels speak to us in our dreams!
There is no conceivable way for Ken and I to express how deep our gratitude is or how profoundly moved and blessed we feel.
But we will spend the remainder of our lives trying to do just that.
God Bless each and every one of you.
I love you.
Kim
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