stress

Let’s get real for a few minutes here.

Smiedendipity has been silent for a little while now.  As much as I post happy life events and fun projects here, my husband and I are real people, living a real life…and that sometimes comes with real problems.  I wouldn’t be authentic if I didn’t also share our struggles, so I’m writing about this with my husband’s permission.

There has been quite a bit of drama going on in our family over the last year – not between Jeremy and I, but within our larger family circle in general, and it’s caused a TON of stress.  That combined with our full time jobs, and caring for Isla has led to accumulating stress with very little time to address it.

Unfortunately, this caused a small decline in my husband’s health lately.  We’d both wanted him to get in to see the doctor a for a while, he just hadn’t made the time to do it – well, he finally went in.  We really both thought that whatever it was would probably be minor.  No big deal.

Then the doctor threw out a diagnostic guess, with the word “lymphoma” in it.

Lymphoma is a form of cancer.  This is where I fall apart.

Basically there were a few things that it could be, and this was one of them.  Jeremy had some tests run, which led to a completely agonizing wait for the results.  As much as I wanted to be strong for him, I’ve been walking around in a panic.  Thinking about worst case scenarios, and prone to breaking down in sobs at the most random times.  At the gas station, in the grocery store, while changing my daughter’s diaper, even while running.  Jeremy has been so brave, and so optimistic through this whole ordeal – I have always admired his attitude when dealing with the unknown.

I am not as brave as he is, and I haven’t been able to focus on much else other than putting one foot in front of the other as I try to get through each day that the results aren’t in and we’re living in the “what if” zone.

Thankfully, the results did come in.  The diagnosis came back as an autoimmune overreaction, and with a few lifestyle changes – namely, cutting out toxic sources of stress – he’s going to be fine.

My husband is going to be fine.

I’ve never been more thankful for anything in my life.  Even the epidural during my 30 hour labor comes in at a distant second.

We’ve learned a few important lessons through this experience:
Be thankful for your health.  Do what you can to preserve it.
Be thankful for each other.  Time and routine can cause you to forget how lucky you are to have each day.
Be good to yourself.  Don’t sacrifice your own health when putting others first.

Thank you for sticking with me, readers.  My nerves are finally calming down, and I’ll be back to posting regularly very, very soon.

Until then, be good to each other.