Once home I was feeling anxious for the phone to ring and someone to tell me how my husband was doing. I couldn't stop wondering why he was Septic. How would he of gotten blood poisoning? I decided I needed to clear my head and pull myself together. I needed to think -- so I put on the tea kettle! Laugh if you want, but I don't drink or smoke, so tea is all I have.
Then my puppies, of course, needed attention and to be let outside and fed. In passing I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen to start a list.
The list, oh the list...was a mile long of all the things that had to be done. Now would be a good time for "I dream of Jeanie" to appear and use her magic to fix this mess I felt we were in. It was a tug-of-war between my emotions and my strength to carry on and do whatever had to be done. My husband needed me now more than ever.
Then the phone call came from the Emergency Department of the Yellowknife hospital. The doctor said I should get there as soon as I could and that he would do up the required letter so that Medical Travel would make my flight arrangements. He said that my husband was hanging in but that they wanted to MediVac him out again to Edmonton where the Specialist was. They got a hold of the Specialist but figured they would not be able to move Neil for a couple of days. He needed to get as much antibiotics into his system as possible to fight the infection, and to top it off the hospital in Edmonton had a shortage of beds for incoming patients.
So now there was not doubt in my mind. I knew exactly what I had to do. I started making calls to round up some help. This was a humbling experience and pride was of no importance. The trip was not going to be a short one if they were sending him out to Edmonton. I figured if the doctor's letter was received the next day, they would be able to get me on the plane the following morning. There was a flight at 8 am. Our community of only 1100 people, being so small, had very few flights a day. So with limited time to get things done, sleep went out the window and the work began. I packed boxes and my luggage to prepare to leave.
In the morning friends showed up and we literally moved everything from one house to the other in one day. I got a call saying my flight tickets were ready for pick-up, so I rushed over to get them. By 6 pm our friends were done helping to move our stuff and looked very tired. They were so wonderful, they never even stopped for lunch. Once they were done and said good-bye, then my job continued. Now I had to clean the empty house so our Landlord could do a walk-thru. By one AM I was finally finished. I drove to our new house to find everything piled everywhere and anywhere, so I had absolutely no idea where anything was. I heated up some leftovers, my first meal of the day, and could not find the silverware to eat it with. Oh well, I had fingers so I put them to use. Too tired to finish eating the puppies happily helped themselves.
I called the hospital again and found out that my hubby had been moved to the ICU and was being monitored closely. The fact that he was out of the Emergency Department allowed me to breathe a little easier. I lay on the couch, as the bed was not put together and was buried behind a lot of boxes. I closed my eyes and said a little prayer before falling to sleep. A few short hours later at five AM I was up making sure I had all we needed to take on this trip and of course had that much needed cup of tea.
The puppies and I arrived at the airport early. I watched as they loaded the dog kennels onto the plane. We were on our way.
To be continued tomorrow...Tori
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Monday, 29 April 2013
The Begining of the Dark Days
Well, the seven hour drive home to Fort Simpson was a quiet one. We were both at a loss for words. It seemed we were merely going through the motions not knowing what else to do except hold hands.
Typical -- you always think of the things you wish you had asked the nurse or doctor after you get home. Why is that? Now that things were beginning to sink in, I had questions. So I called the next day in hopes that the answers would give me some relief as though maybe we had misunderstood the diagnosis or something. No such luck. I was also told that it would be about two months before he maybe seen by this Specialist in Edmonton. "WHAT!!!" I wanted to scream! "Don't you people understand he has cancer!? How could you make him wait so long." I was so angry. Apparently, this is a normal waiting period for here due to the volume of sick people and lack of operating room time. We may not pay for healthcare in Canada but funding can only go so far and the result is long waiting periods.
Neil woke up the next day and was dealing with this illness in a more relaxed way. He started joking about it. "Hey, I could use this cancer thing to my advantage," he said. "I won't be able to help you with the dishes tonight sweetheart he said, because -- you know...I have cancer. Think of all the things I could get away with not doing, all because I have cancer. Hey, maybe I will finally lose some weight," he said. I am sure I starred at him blankly. At first I thought he was trying to cheer me up so I played along.
At work he told his co-workers the news. They were all shocked and left speechless. Neil made light of the situation and merely returned to work and his daily tasks. It was then that I realized he was in denial and that we were both going through the stages of grief. At that very moment I realized he was thinking the worst and I needed to be strong for him. I needed to be positive about the outcome of this situation in hopes of keeping up his spirits. I don't know if I pulled it off very well, but I tried. I did not treat him differently except to respect the fact that he needed to rest more. When he was at work I would cry all day. I did not know what to do, but I refused to give up. So I spoke to some nurse friends and I hunted the internet for information. We were told that if a person had no choice about getting cancer, that bladder cancer would be one of the better ones to get. When I asked why, they said because there are good survival rates for this type of cancer. We discovered that depending on the type and grade level of his cancer, they maybe able to merely scrape it out and hope it does not grow back. Maybe not quite that simple but along those lines. We started hearing more and more success stories which gave me the confidence I needed to help him fight this battle. For Neil, it was not so easy as there had been three different types of cancer in his family, and this terrible disease took each one of them.
Six weeks had passed and still no phone call with a booking to go see this Specialist. We made plans to start working on packing over the weekend as we were getting ready to move to another rental house in Fort Simpson. A larger place that we had leased before we knew about the cancer. Too late to change our plans now. What happened next neither of us expected....things went from bad to worse.
Saturday morning Neil woke up feeling sick and a little feverish. Two ladies at his work were off sick as well so we assumed he had picked up the flu from them. Four days later he was getting worse and complained about being cold and not being able to get warm. He was under 3 blankets and still felt cold as ice. He was shivering and became unsteady on his feet. I rushed him to our Health Centre and he was seen by a doctor and a nurse immediately. The next thing I know they were telling me he was going to be flown out on a MediVac to our nearest city hospital in Yellowknife. They believed him to be Septic, but no idea why or how. He turned jaundiced and cold and yet was sweating, none of these symptoms were good. They started him on an IV of antibiotics and monitored his blood pressure which was everywhere but where it should be. I was calm through all of this and by his side until they took him away from me and put him into the ambulance to take him to the Medivac plane. Because there was also a second patient to go out on the same Medivac, I was told there was no room for me to go along. I felt every muscle in my body go limp. As I said good-bye to my husband I could not hold back the tears. "What if he died," I though. What would I do without him, I was all alone.
Well dear friends we will pick this up again tomorrow. Thanks for reading along...Tori
Typical -- you always think of the things you wish you had asked the nurse or doctor after you get home. Why is that? Now that things were beginning to sink in, I had questions. So I called the next day in hopes that the answers would give me some relief as though maybe we had misunderstood the diagnosis or something. No such luck. I was also told that it would be about two months before he maybe seen by this Specialist in Edmonton. "WHAT!!!" I wanted to scream! "Don't you people understand he has cancer!? How could you make him wait so long." I was so angry. Apparently, this is a normal waiting period for here due to the volume of sick people and lack of operating room time. We may not pay for healthcare in Canada but funding can only go so far and the result is long waiting periods.
Neil woke up the next day and was dealing with this illness in a more relaxed way. He started joking about it. "Hey, I could use this cancer thing to my advantage," he said. "I won't be able to help you with the dishes tonight sweetheart he said, because -- you know...I have cancer. Think of all the things I could get away with not doing, all because I have cancer. Hey, maybe I will finally lose some weight," he said. I am sure I starred at him blankly. At first I thought he was trying to cheer me up so I played along.
At work he told his co-workers the news. They were all shocked and left speechless. Neil made light of the situation and merely returned to work and his daily tasks. It was then that I realized he was in denial and that we were both going through the stages of grief. At that very moment I realized he was thinking the worst and I needed to be strong for him. I needed to be positive about the outcome of this situation in hopes of keeping up his spirits. I don't know if I pulled it off very well, but I tried. I did not treat him differently except to respect the fact that he needed to rest more. When he was at work I would cry all day. I did not know what to do, but I refused to give up. So I spoke to some nurse friends and I hunted the internet for information. We were told that if a person had no choice about getting cancer, that bladder cancer would be one of the better ones to get. When I asked why, they said because there are good survival rates for this type of cancer. We discovered that depending on the type and grade level of his cancer, they maybe able to merely scrape it out and hope it does not grow back. Maybe not quite that simple but along those lines. We started hearing more and more success stories which gave me the confidence I needed to help him fight this battle. For Neil, it was not so easy as there had been three different types of cancer in his family, and this terrible disease took each one of them.
Six weeks had passed and still no phone call with a booking to go see this Specialist. We made plans to start working on packing over the weekend as we were getting ready to move to another rental house in Fort Simpson. A larger place that we had leased before we knew about the cancer. Too late to change our plans now. What happened next neither of us expected....things went from bad to worse.
Saturday morning Neil woke up feeling sick and a little feverish. Two ladies at his work were off sick as well so we assumed he had picked up the flu from them. Four days later he was getting worse and complained about being cold and not being able to get warm. He was under 3 blankets and still felt cold as ice. He was shivering and became unsteady on his feet. I rushed him to our Health Centre and he was seen by a doctor and a nurse immediately. The next thing I know they were telling me he was going to be flown out on a MediVac to our nearest city hospital in Yellowknife. They believed him to be Septic, but no idea why or how. He turned jaundiced and cold and yet was sweating, none of these symptoms were good. They started him on an IV of antibiotics and monitored his blood pressure which was everywhere but where it should be. I was calm through all of this and by his side until they took him away from me and put him into the ambulance to take him to the Medivac plane. Because there was also a second patient to go out on the same Medivac, I was told there was no room for me to go along. I felt every muscle in my body go limp. As I said good-bye to my husband I could not hold back the tears. "What if he died," I though. What would I do without him, I was all alone.
Well dear friends we will pick this up again tomorrow. Thanks for reading along...Tori
Sunday, 28 April 2013
He's the love of my life
Well you can't start telling any story from the middle so lets back it up a little bit. My husband and I like most couples have had our ups and downs, struggles and successes. We have 5 wonderful children that we love dearly, but over the years they also gave us both a lot of gray hair, lol. My hubby has a wonderful sense of humour and he is one of those people that is quick with the come backs. I think his sense of humour, and his very tight white Levis button fly jeans (which was the fashion way back when) was what attracted me to him all those years ago. We met while in high school in Ontario. We are actually very fortunate to this day to still enjoy each others company and know that we have always been soul mates. I love that he can still make me laugh. I think he enjoys the fact that I still surprise him with the off the wall things that I spontaneously decide to do that he never sees coming, either that or he has just gotten used to it -- probably the later.
So when maturity, marriage and kids and all those other huge responsibilities came along, my hubby decided to return to school and learn a trade so he could make a better living for our family. For some reason he got it into his head that I would want and should want to do the same thing? What was he thinking? I was very happy being a wife and mother and really did not have any plans to change that, but the world around me was changing. My husband said that one day the children will be all grown up and would leave home and then what would I do with my time. I struggled and struggled to try to figure out what I should do, what were my interests, how would I fit into this new stage of life. Then one day I sat down with a cup of tea and pondered about the things I felt I was good at -- and only a few things came to mind. I loved cooking, I loved children, and I very much enjoy elderly people. Long story short, I eventually went back to school and took a course to become a Licensed Practical Nurse.
My hubby's talents grew and he became known and respected throughout many communities in the North where we first moved to in the 70's. He's now works in an office setting and holds a Managers position and after 11 years still loves what he does. My career expanded into areas that I never thought possible. I worked with the young and old alike. I worked in hospitals in Acute Care, Emergency, Long Term Care wards, Private Homecare, Physio Therapy and eventually was offered a job doing Telehealth. Telehealth, is a means of holding medical clinics from remote community locations with Southern large hospital Specialists via video-conferencing so the patient does not have to travel to be seen. My biggest achievement in this field was making people aware that Speech Therapy for children could be done using Telehealth. With the help of many, this project became the reason why all of our communities in the North got Telehealth equipment. The Speech program continues to be a huge success today.
So, we built a life. Bought a home and spent lots of hours and money fixing it up to be something we were proud of. The kids had now grown up and had all left home and started their own families. We still have children though...the small 4 pawed kind. I love my dogs, RaggleMuffin and Chester.
The days at work seemed to grow longer and longer and were often stressful. My husband seemed tired and worn out most evenings or weekends. He worked a lot of overtime and worked even from home. I felt like we were in a rut doing the same things day in and day out. Winters in Inuvik in the Northwest Territories are long and cold and because it is a small town there is not a lot to do or many places to go. I found myself sighing a lot and becoming frustrated over almost everything. Were we becoming boring or just missing our full busy lives with our kids when they were at home with us? Well, something was going on that neither of us were aware of at this point in time.
I decided to spice things up! We'd work hard for many years and there was a world out there to see and I wanted to see some of it. So, we began travelling. We went to Tahiti, Florida, Mexico, and went on a few Caribbean cruises. We had the time of our lives and loved each and every adventure. I would start planning our next vacation practically the minute we got back from the previous one. We only did these big trips as our savings permitted but what memories we created.
On our last cruise, we took some of our children and grandchildren along with us. You see, my husband decided to ask me to remarry him and renew our vows on a beach in St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. It was one of the stops that our cruise ship was to make. The day was spectacular! A dream come true. We felt so alive, young and in love, while we enjoyed the company of our family once again. Our last land vacation destination was to Belize in Central America. We stayed for a full month. We travelled to the rain forest and snorkeled in the ocean. I love the water and snorkeling with the sea life. My husband enjoys it too but is not as comfortable with all the sea life as I am. I swam with stingrays, sharks, and logger-head turtles. They are all amazing. The hubby however, does not like to wear flippers while snorkeling and often found that his mustache would let water in under his mask making snorkeling a little difficult at times. He does enjoy some of the sea life like dolphins and stingrays, but has a fear of sharks as we found out. When we would go snorkeling I always made it a habit to look back and check on him to see if he was ok the same as he I'm sure did for me, although he was more worried about my losing track of time and swimming off too far following a fish or turtle somewhere. This particular time though, I looked back and saw him swimming with great frantic speed towards the boat. I wondered what was going on? I saw him coughing and choking and destroying his nails trying to claw his way up the side of the boat to get in, with no success I might add. I saw the guide shouting out to him that it was ok, he won't hurt you!. At this point I decided to investigate. So I peered under the water and saw a very big Nurse shark. Then I knew what had happened and began to laugh. My poor husband reacted like I would whenever I saw a spider. Later, he told me that he was doing fine in the water but saw something out of the side of his eye and turned to see this huge shark coming straight at him, the panic set in immediately! Forgetting he was under water he gasped and the ocean water flooded his orifices and his lungs, hence the choking. He leaked sea water for a week!
We met many expats while we travelled around Belize that had moved to this country to live and retire and thought that if we had this chance this would be something we would love to do. Placencia, in Belize was so welcoming and comfortable that we felt like we never wanted to leave, but our vacation time was coming to an end and work was calling us back. The good thing was that now we were talking about retirement and looking forward this next stage of our lives and making plans.
Home and settled back into our old routine, we were confident our dreams of retiring and moving to live in Belize would in a short few years become a reality. It was not long though before I noticed my hubby not feeling well again and complaining of his lack of energy and an over-all sense of just not feeling well. He went to the doctor and they thought he had a bladder infection, which he seemed to get now and then. Anyways, an opportunity arose where my husband was asked to go to another community to help out as they were short staffed due to an opening for a Manager in their office that they had been unable to fill. So he flew down to Fort Simpson and was there for a week. He called me and said how surprised he was at how beautiful this little community was and it was nice that from there you could drive out to the major cities. I was very curious to know more. Several months later, with the Manager job still open in Fort Simpson, he decided to apply for it. Long story short we moved and put our house up for sale.
I had taken a year off work with what the government calls 'leave without pay due to spousal relocation'. This means I had a year to find another government job or I had to return to the old job in Inuvik or quit. Little did I know just how scarce government jobs in this small town were. I was able to find casual positions but just nothing came along for me that was permanent full time. So, while sitting and having a cup of tea, which seems to be my relaxation time where I am able to think and make decisions, good or bad, that I came up with the idea that thirty years ago I had started to write a Children's book and with family and life and all I never finished it. So with all this time on my hands I figured now would be a great time to try it again. This could be a good retirement job for me, I thought. Being my own boss for a change sounded pretty nice too. My children and grandchildren would benefit from the books and hopefully many other families too. With great eagerness I began my new journey into unfamiliar territory.
It was not long before I noticed my hubby was still not feeling well and again seemed to have an infection of some kind. So off to the doctor we went. They sent him out for tests to be done and later decided they wanted to do a scope of his bladder to see what was going on with these infections. Well the first scope was scheduled in June but didn't happen due to the scope being dropped right before the procedure and it broke. They told him they would have to rebook him and that the Specialist would not be back until September. So we went back home and carried on waiting for the call to let us know when the next appointment would be.
My husband's 60th birthday was coming up in April of 2013. I wanted to do something spectacular for him. I wanted him to know just how much I loved him and wanted to do something that we would both cherish and experience together before our retirement. One last big trip before the paycheques diminished and became small retirement cheques. There was a place we wanted to go to that we just had never made it to and that was Europe. But Europe is such a big big place and we would only have a month there to see as much as we could. So began the planning and choosing of our destinations. I always tried to save money as best I could by using Points to lower the cost of our airfare, and using our timeshare to lower the cost of the hotels. Somehow though these trips were never cheap. We may not go with a lot of spending money in our pockets but we always managed to have a great time with each other. I think our just being together and experiencing yet another adventure kept us feeling young and alive. There was no question, we were in love and truly meant to be together. We met so many people on these trips and felt so enriched by the cultures we were introduced to, that I believe we were addicted to life itself.
June 1st, 2012 I booked us to go on a 7 night cruise leaving Venice, going to Croatia, Greece, Turkey, and back to Venice. I thought I would build the rest of our trip, the land portion, around the cruise. So the penny pinching began for the best birthday gift ever.
One day the phone rang and it was the doctor's office telling us that Neil had been rescheduled to go in for a scope of his bladder in early September. We arrived for the appointment and the procedure was surprisingly short. When the love of my life returned he looked numb. He hugged me and held me tight. When I asked what was wrong, he said "I have Cancer! They said my bladder is full of it!" I was in shock as was he. The nurse told us what the next steps were and that an appointment would be made for him to see a Urologist in Edmonton. They would be in touch. We left, only got part way down the hallway when we embraced each other so tightly I could hardly breathe. We both cried. Our world as we new it had just shattered before our eyes. The reality of what this meant had not really sunk in yet, but it would......
Till next time, Tori.
So when maturity, marriage and kids and all those other huge responsibilities came along, my hubby decided to return to school and learn a trade so he could make a better living for our family. For some reason he got it into his head that I would want and should want to do the same thing? What was he thinking? I was very happy being a wife and mother and really did not have any plans to change that, but the world around me was changing. My husband said that one day the children will be all grown up and would leave home and then what would I do with my time. I struggled and struggled to try to figure out what I should do, what were my interests, how would I fit into this new stage of life. Then one day I sat down with a cup of tea and pondered about the things I felt I was good at -- and only a few things came to mind. I loved cooking, I loved children, and I very much enjoy elderly people. Long story short, I eventually went back to school and took a course to become a Licensed Practical Nurse.
My hubby's talents grew and he became known and respected throughout many communities in the North where we first moved to in the 70's. He's now works in an office setting and holds a Managers position and after 11 years still loves what he does. My career expanded into areas that I never thought possible. I worked with the young and old alike. I worked in hospitals in Acute Care, Emergency, Long Term Care wards, Private Homecare, Physio Therapy and eventually was offered a job doing Telehealth. Telehealth, is a means of holding medical clinics from remote community locations with Southern large hospital Specialists via video-conferencing so the patient does not have to travel to be seen. My biggest achievement in this field was making people aware that Speech Therapy for children could be done using Telehealth. With the help of many, this project became the reason why all of our communities in the North got Telehealth equipment. The Speech program continues to be a huge success today.
So, we built a life. Bought a home and spent lots of hours and money fixing it up to be something we were proud of. The kids had now grown up and had all left home and started their own families. We still have children though...the small 4 pawed kind. I love my dogs, RaggleMuffin and Chester.
The days at work seemed to grow longer and longer and were often stressful. My husband seemed tired and worn out most evenings or weekends. He worked a lot of overtime and worked even from home. I felt like we were in a rut doing the same things day in and day out. Winters in Inuvik in the Northwest Territories are long and cold and because it is a small town there is not a lot to do or many places to go. I found myself sighing a lot and becoming frustrated over almost everything. Were we becoming boring or just missing our full busy lives with our kids when they were at home with us? Well, something was going on that neither of us were aware of at this point in time.
I decided to spice things up! We'd work hard for many years and there was a world out there to see and I wanted to see some of it. So, we began travelling. We went to Tahiti, Florida, Mexico, and went on a few Caribbean cruises. We had the time of our lives and loved each and every adventure. I would start planning our next vacation practically the minute we got back from the previous one. We only did these big trips as our savings permitted but what memories we created.
On our last cruise, we took some of our children and grandchildren along with us. You see, my husband decided to ask me to remarry him and renew our vows on a beach in St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. It was one of the stops that our cruise ship was to make. The day was spectacular! A dream come true. We felt so alive, young and in love, while we enjoyed the company of our family once again. Our last land vacation destination was to Belize in Central America. We stayed for a full month. We travelled to the rain forest and snorkeled in the ocean. I love the water and snorkeling with the sea life. My husband enjoys it too but is not as comfortable with all the sea life as I am. I swam with stingrays, sharks, and logger-head turtles. They are all amazing. The hubby however, does not like to wear flippers while snorkeling and often found that his mustache would let water in under his mask making snorkeling a little difficult at times. He does enjoy some of the sea life like dolphins and stingrays, but has a fear of sharks as we found out. When we would go snorkeling I always made it a habit to look back and check on him to see if he was ok the same as he I'm sure did for me, although he was more worried about my losing track of time and swimming off too far following a fish or turtle somewhere. This particular time though, I looked back and saw him swimming with great frantic speed towards the boat. I wondered what was going on? I saw him coughing and choking and destroying his nails trying to claw his way up the side of the boat to get in, with no success I might add. I saw the guide shouting out to him that it was ok, he won't hurt you!. At this point I decided to investigate. So I peered under the water and saw a very big Nurse shark. Then I knew what had happened and began to laugh. My poor husband reacted like I would whenever I saw a spider. Later, he told me that he was doing fine in the water but saw something out of the side of his eye and turned to see this huge shark coming straight at him, the panic set in immediately! Forgetting he was under water he gasped and the ocean water flooded his orifices and his lungs, hence the choking. He leaked sea water for a week!
We met many expats while we travelled around Belize that had moved to this country to live and retire and thought that if we had this chance this would be something we would love to do. Placencia, in Belize was so welcoming and comfortable that we felt like we never wanted to leave, but our vacation time was coming to an end and work was calling us back. The good thing was that now we were talking about retirement and looking forward this next stage of our lives and making plans.
Home and settled back into our old routine, we were confident our dreams of retiring and moving to live in Belize would in a short few years become a reality. It was not long though before I noticed my hubby not feeling well again and complaining of his lack of energy and an over-all sense of just not feeling well. He went to the doctor and they thought he had a bladder infection, which he seemed to get now and then. Anyways, an opportunity arose where my husband was asked to go to another community to help out as they were short staffed due to an opening for a Manager in their office that they had been unable to fill. So he flew down to Fort Simpson and was there for a week. He called me and said how surprised he was at how beautiful this little community was and it was nice that from there you could drive out to the major cities. I was very curious to know more. Several months later, with the Manager job still open in Fort Simpson, he decided to apply for it. Long story short we moved and put our house up for sale.
I had taken a year off work with what the government calls 'leave without pay due to spousal relocation'. This means I had a year to find another government job or I had to return to the old job in Inuvik or quit. Little did I know just how scarce government jobs in this small town were. I was able to find casual positions but just nothing came along for me that was permanent full time. So, while sitting and having a cup of tea, which seems to be my relaxation time where I am able to think and make decisions, good or bad, that I came up with the idea that thirty years ago I had started to write a Children's book and with family and life and all I never finished it. So with all this time on my hands I figured now would be a great time to try it again. This could be a good retirement job for me, I thought. Being my own boss for a change sounded pretty nice too. My children and grandchildren would benefit from the books and hopefully many other families too. With great eagerness I began my new journey into unfamiliar territory.
It was not long before I noticed my hubby was still not feeling well and again seemed to have an infection of some kind. So off to the doctor we went. They sent him out for tests to be done and later decided they wanted to do a scope of his bladder to see what was going on with these infections. Well the first scope was scheduled in June but didn't happen due to the scope being dropped right before the procedure and it broke. They told him they would have to rebook him and that the Specialist would not be back until September. So we went back home and carried on waiting for the call to let us know when the next appointment would be.
My husband's 60th birthday was coming up in April of 2013. I wanted to do something spectacular for him. I wanted him to know just how much I loved him and wanted to do something that we would both cherish and experience together before our retirement. One last big trip before the paycheques diminished and became small retirement cheques. There was a place we wanted to go to that we just had never made it to and that was Europe. But Europe is such a big big place and we would only have a month there to see as much as we could. So began the planning and choosing of our destinations. I always tried to save money as best I could by using Points to lower the cost of our airfare, and using our timeshare to lower the cost of the hotels. Somehow though these trips were never cheap. We may not go with a lot of spending money in our pockets but we always managed to have a great time with each other. I think our just being together and experiencing yet another adventure kept us feeling young and alive. There was no question, we were in love and truly meant to be together. We met so many people on these trips and felt so enriched by the cultures we were introduced to, that I believe we were addicted to life itself.
June 1st, 2012 I booked us to go on a 7 night cruise leaving Venice, going to Croatia, Greece, Turkey, and back to Venice. I thought I would build the rest of our trip, the land portion, around the cruise. So the penny pinching began for the best birthday gift ever.
One day the phone rang and it was the doctor's office telling us that Neil had been rescheduled to go in for a scope of his bladder in early September. We arrived for the appointment and the procedure was surprisingly short. When the love of my life returned he looked numb. He hugged me and held me tight. When I asked what was wrong, he said "I have Cancer! They said my bladder is full of it!" I was in shock as was he. The nurse told us what the next steps were and that an appointment would be made for him to see a Urologist in Edmonton. They would be in touch. We left, only got part way down the hallway when we embraced each other so tightly I could hardly breathe. We both cried. Our world as we new it had just shattered before our eyes. The reality of what this meant had not really sunk in yet, but it would......
Till next time, Tori.
Saturday, 27 April 2013
Oreo Cookies
I am sitting here smiling and eating Oreo cookies and remembering how my husband and I got hooked on them while we were in Belize on a vacation a few years ago. We love to travel and go on adventures together.
My husband just turned 60 this year and we, like others, had plans for our retirement that was to take place in five years, but life took an unexpected turn and we have been in turmoil ever since. We are feeling very disjointed and are struggling to find our way back to normal.
Probably sounds familiar to other stories you have already hear, but mine well...it's about courage, true love, and moving forward. Someone once told me I was very resilient. For some of us as we get older this gets harder but I am here to tell you it is not impossible.
More tomorrow...Tori
My husband just turned 60 this year and we, like others, had plans for our retirement that was to take place in five years, but life took an unexpected turn and we have been in turmoil ever since. We are feeling very disjointed and are struggling to find our way back to normal.
Probably sounds familiar to other stories you have already hear, but mine well...it's about courage, true love, and moving forward. Someone once told me I was very resilient. For some of us as we get older this gets harder but I am here to tell you it is not impossible.
More tomorrow...Tori
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