November 1, 2025

Well, I'm checking in. For years, myeloma blogs were such a big part of my life and I "met" some awesome people. I find it helpful to write. I should do it more. It's cathartic and sometimes you figure things out when you take the time to write down your thoughts. So, an update. Tim is doing really well. He is over 18.5 years out from diagnosis. He is taking another chemo break, which is something we didn't think he was going to be able to do again. He was on Dara as a single agent, then Pomalyst was added every other day. But, he worries about the effects of the drugs on his body long term. I can't say I don't worry as well. So, he decided to give his body a rest. He has no m-spike and his markers all look fine. His doctor is being very cautious and will do bone marrow MRI's to make sure nothing sinister is happening despite the low markers. We have 5 myeloma specialists in our practice and I think they just hired a 6th. The younger doctors are not OK with chemo vacations. They don't like taking the risk of bone damage cropping up even when labs look good. I get it. It happens and the results can be very damaging to a patient's quality of life. But, Tim knows the risks and his disease does not behave the way myeloma usually does. He wants to take advantage of that. And, since I have respect for his right to call the shots, and I also know folks who died from years of taking chemo, I support his decision. It's nice to have a bit of normalcy in our lives and not make multiple trips to the cancer center every month. I just have to be careful to only book his appointments with his regular doctor or we will hear a lot of fire and brimstone from the others. They will never be on board with this decision. Our daughter found a new job since I last wrote. Thank goodness. The company she worked for before this was awful and she was so overworked and stressed out, it was getting us worried. She lost weight, had tension headaches. It was baaaad. Ironically, she now works for a company that does marketing for medical conferences and there's times when I know the myeloma doctors speaking because they are blood cancer conferences. She likes that she is somehow involved in helping the cause. Her roommates both moved in with their boyfriends so she had to move into her own place. Luckily she found a place just 2 blocks from the beach and we moved her in this past May. She's not crazy about living alone but I think she's getting used to it. She loves living by the ocean. We miss her but it's only 70 miles away so we do see her from time to time. We just went down with the dog, a week ago, and walked the beach and boardwalk with Liv. Asbury Park is the most dog friendly place I have ever seen. They're everywhere. And, thank goodness for facetime when you're empty nesting. It's so helpful when you're missing someone. She will be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is great. We are fighting our dog's cancer again right now. She had surgery 2+ years ago and, sadly, it recurred. A soft tissue tumor in her leg. So she goes for surgery again on Friday. She will be our last dog. I will hate not having a dog in our home but the vet costs and the heartache when they get sick and die is just too much for me. I love this doggie so much. We are all gonna be distraught when she goes. I can't do it again. And she's soooooo good. We take her everywhere we go on vacation. She never messes indoors or barks or chews. I know we will never get a dog this good again and I don't want to be limited on going away because of a pet. It's not easy to find pet-friendly places last minute and we don't plan vacations very far in advance. It is coming up on 5 years since we lost my dad to cancer. I cannot believe it has been that long. It's scary how fast the time zooms by. My mom is doing OK in assisted living. Her short term memory is really bad but she's hanging in there. So, looming in the near future is having to decide what to do about Tim collecting social security. He becomes eligable for it in Feb. They say to collect early if you are sick. But, he still wants to work so we will be "docked" quite a bit of his benefits due to his income. I went to a free seminar at a local library last week but, it turns out the woman gave incorrect information about social security. I think her main goal was to find new customers to sell annuities to. She called me the other night, gave me even more incorrect info about SS and lost interest in me as soon as she realized I was not interested in buying annuities. I guess it's time to call Soc. Sec. directly. I have to figure this out. I'm always fearful I'm going to make a financial mistake that can't be fixed later. I've felt that way ever since Tim was diagnosed. It doesn't help that we have lost a fair bit of money because of things I didn't know. It sucks but there's no going back. Tim's body is not going to be able to keep doing what he does for much longer. He's always in pain, has arthritis, disc degeneration, some neck issues, and a torn meniscus now. The truth is, it would probably be better for us if he went out on permanent disability instead of retiring. He would get his full SS benefit, instead of 70%, get medicare sooner, and he isn't even supposed to be lifting heavy items with his MM. He lifts a machine that weighs over 250 pounds (with our employee). But, he is adamant about working as long as he can. He thinks he will worsen physically and mentally if he stops. I can't argue with him. It's his decision. I just hate worrying about money. We live in a high cost of living area. It's not going to be easy to retire here and he said he is NOT moving. One day at a time, Denise, one day at a time. But, you don't get to avoid planning ahead when it comes to finincial issues. We will have to make a decision soon. So, bring on fall and the holiday season. To anyone reading, wishing you health and happiness. Our holidays look very different these days but, it's OK. Even when it's just the 3 of us celebrating at home, I'm with my favorite people in the world and I feel blessed. Cheers!

17 years

Today, March 8th, 2024, is 17 years since we were told that Tim has myeloma. The gratefulness I feel is hard to put into words, partly because there are so many other emotions also tied to it. In 2007, especially after a failed autologous transplant in September, we didn't even dare to hope that Tim had a chance to live this long. From what we were told, we'd be lucky if he saw our then 8 year old reach her teen years. We were told that only with an allogeneic transplant would he have a chance to see her graduate high school, a treatment he took a pass on after a phone consult with Dr. Durie from the IMF. Guesses about his life span, that we NEVER asked for, ranged between 2 and 5 years. Sadly, there are myeloma patients that only see those time spans. My gratefulness over our good fortune is always tempered by remembering friends and aquaintances that were not as fortunate as we've been, some of which didn't make it to their kids' graduations. And when people hear about my husband's cancer, those who are not fighting a cancer battle themselves, they don't have a clue what these 17 years looked like for us. They only see it in a one dimensional way, that we are so lucky. And, we are. But, from a realistic standpoint, most people would not consider being diagnosed at 43 with an incurable disease, when you have an 8 year old daughter you want to raise, a lucky break. It's not. 2007 was the worst year of our lives. 2008 was brutal as well. And I know for sure that it was only the very long breaks in treatment that Tim was able to take that gave us a chance to get our feet back under us and the ability to exhale ever so slightly. We still lived month to month, or sometimes every 2 or 3 months, sweating out those lab reports or scans. The fear and sadness still hangs over us that anything can happen at any time and we are not able to plan things for the future with any sense of certainty that our little family will still be intact then. The covid pandemic made things even worse in that respect as we had to curb what little social life we had and Tim is really tired of feeling like he is not living what time he has left like he wants to. Ya see, the thing about people marveling over how long he has lived with myeloma is the very next thought that runs through his head every time they say that......how much longer can he possibly have? I think he has this number in his head, 20 years, thinking that making it past that is out of reach. And 3 years does not sound like very long with how fast the months fly by. While I know people who have lived with myeloma longer than that, I think just the shock people have that he's gone this long, some of them in the medical field, makes him think he's on borrowed time. It's a scary place to be, no doubt about it. He is starting to become somewhat famous in our myeloma department as other patients learn how long he's had this, with doctors sometimes warning them that his case is not the norm. One doctor told a new friend of mine, whose husband was diagnosed a few years ago, that Tim is an anomaly. One doctor told us he was a fluke. Comments are made that "you can't go by him." I dunno, there were no immunotherapies back in 2007. I think that with these modern treatments we have now, living this long will be much less of an anomaly for people diagnosed now. I believe Tim is enjoying the "fame" a little but, lately, I can tell he is also bummed to think that he will probably not be "allowed" to go off treatment ever again and that is a sobering thought for him. He developed a lesion on his sternum a few years ago, while off treatment, despite very low marker numbers so his doctor is not inclined to let him take any more extending drug holidays. These days, he is taking Darzalex shots once a month and his m-spike is tiny, .07 on his last lab report. His doctor let him drop the Dex because the side effects were lasting too long and making it hard for him to keep working and run his business. His quality of life is MUCH better without that awful stuff. After 4 years of distancing and masking, he finally caught covid in January, probably from his visit to the cancer center. They re-instated their mask mandate but are not enforcing it very well. Despite being masked indoors the few places he ever goes, it got him. It was a miracle I didn't catch it. We lived on separate floors for a few weeks. He recovered well, thankfully. Life is speeding by though and he's not happy with less vacations and outings. We stopped going to the beach in season and now go in the spring and/or fall and stay in private rentals instead of hotels when possible. He doesn't go to restaurants with his friends unless it's outdoors. He broke that rule last May to attend a friend's 60th birthday. He got sick and was sick for over a month, spreading it to Liv and myself as well. Speaking of last year, Liv moved out in June. Talk about conflicting emotions. Jeez, this sure triggered that. We are so proud of her. We are happy for her. She moved to an apt. 3 blocks from the Asbury Park boardwalk and beach. She has 2 roommates. She loves it. But, wow, do we miss her. Life is very different when someone who lived with you for 25 years moves out. She has not found a new job yet and her company still wants her coming into the office a day or 2 a week, so she started out staying here overnight once a week but now is down to just driving up for one day and going back the same day. We still get to see her, briefly, sometimes, so it has helped us as we adjust to being empty nesters. She's only 70 miles away so it's a doable trip for us to go visit her too. She had been living such a locked down life with us because of covid. Moving out gave her some normalcy back, though, that normalcy resulted in her getting covid 2 months after moving out. That damn virus is everywhere, especially if you live in an overpopulated state like New Jersey. So, this is what life looks like 17 years into this myeloma journey. We have been very fortunate, from the standpoint of a myeloma patient and caregiver. We are so grateful that we succeeded in raising our daughter together. That was the number one goal. We saw that high school graduation together, and the bachelors degree one, and the MBA graduation too. She's out of the nest and standing on our own 2 feet. It's a blessing and, in some ways, I think it's been a miracle. Life has not been easy for us these last 17 years but, like the old saying goes, it could have been worse.....much worse. We have reached a lot of milestones, not the least of which was Tim turning 60 last month. We have made a lot of memories. We've gotten some vacations and adventures in. In the end, all we can do in this life is make the best of things. I credit Tim with having the courage and mental strength he's had to refuse to let myeloma define him and rob him of whatever time he has left. He made this promise to himself 17 years ago and he made good on it. He amazes me every single day. Cheers to spring and 2024! Be well!

WE'RE HERE !!!!! 2023

I have neglected this blog for 3 years. Truth be told, it was not only neglect, it was that they changed the sign in process and, for some reason, (like I don't know it was because I am so technically challenged) I was unable to get signed in and publish a new post. Today, I just gave it a whirl and, lo and behold, I got in. I used to cringe whenever bloggers went silent and worry that something happened to them. So, if I have any readers around that were tuning in back then, I apologize for that. I was in a very bad place when I last posted. The pandemic had just got into full swing and my Dad had taken a turn for the worse. I had to move my parents out of their condo into assisted living and then clean out their condo and 3 large storage units. I am sad to report, I did lose my father on November 6, 2020. He had lung cancer and then bladder cancer decided to chime in too. There were a lot of very painful things that happened in 2020. It was a year I won't ever forget but I wish I could. On a brighter note, my mother is doing better than we all expected, after losing the man she met when she was 15. Her short term memory is shot but she is still functioning pretty well in her assisted living, just 4.5 miles from my home. It was VERY hard when the place was locked down due to covid, and we could not even visit her in the beginnning of her grief journey, but, we are gladly past those awful days, I hope, for good. She has made friends and feels safe there. As far as Tim's health goes, he went back on treatment in 2021, after a 3.5 year break. Yes, we consider ourselves VERY blessed. To get these kind of drug holidays is not common for myeloma patients. He went on Darxalex, Velcade, and Dex. Things were OK for a bit, but, about 6 weeks into it, he started having major GI issues, which included 4 hour bouts of vomiting about 30 hours after he'd get the belly shots. We dropped the Velcade and it stopped. It seems he does OK on either Dara or Velcade, but, doing them together was too much. Then, in November of '21, he once again decided he wanted to feel good for the holidays and stopped all treatment. He was blessed with another year and a half off meds. He just went back on 10 days ago and I can't say it went well. This time they tried Dara/Rev/Dex. He has not been on Revlimid since induction 16 years ago. I remember the fatigue, chemo brain, loss of taste. Well, this time it caused a burning rash on his torso and unrelenting fevers. He was taken off after day 6, put on Levaquin, but the fevers persisted for several more days. They seem to have stopped but he's still getting bad night sweats and has to start a prednisone taper today for the rash because Claritin wasn't cutting it. His doctor seems to think he can still do Revlimid with supportive meds. Tim thinks NOT. It's always a worry about how much longer he can continue his business if he has to be on treatment. You cannot refinish folks' hardwood floors remotely, from a laptop. The other big news around her is our daughter is moving out. I am proud, excited for her, and devastated all at once. She graduated college in 2020, though she missed the last 2 months of her senior year when we had to move her home in March instead of May. Due to the pandemic and not being able to go out and get a job, thereby risking all of our lives, she went ahead and got her masters degree and finished that up in May of 2021. She is working for a marketing company but has always wanted to move to the JERSEY SHORE, near where she went to college. We thought we'd have her home about another year or two but an opportunity arose with a former college roommate and, since she doesn not want to live alone, it seemed like it might be the only opporunity she might get. SOOOOOO, she's moving to Asbury Park June 1st. I am not looking forward to being an empty nester, but, they don't stay babies forever. I will just have to get used to it. And, just like I did when she was in college, I comfort myself by remembering she's only 70 or so miles away and not in another state or country. As for me, not much has changed. I'm a bit older, heavier, and I think the gray hairs outnumber the brown now. I still do a terrible job taking care of myself and it shows. As a caregiver, you get so used to putting others first. It becomes a very hard habit to break. I'm trying to think of new hobbies I could take up after Liv moves out but, I am still masking indoors and nobody else is. I went to a myeloma summit in early March, because I thought most folks would be masked. Well, they weren't. 4 days later, I came down with the first cold I've had in over 3 years. So, I get pretty anxious going places indoors when nobody is masked. Pretty much everyone I know that eased up on their masking got covid, including both of my sisters, one of whom then got shingles as a parting gift. I have to think of some way to keep busy. Drowning in paperwork makes Denise a dull girl. I guess I will sign off for now. I sure hope this wasn't just a fluke and I can figure out how to get on here again. Summer's coming! I hope it's a good one!

Easter 2020

I'm finding it hard to know how I am supposed to feel today. Normally, this is a day of celebration. That doesn't feel right or possible today. Another myeloma friend, and I hate even saying it like that because myeloma should not define anyone, but Mike died the other day at 46 years old. Like Adina, he left a spouse and 2 teenage daughters. Corona virus took him from his family and this world. He was one of the sweetest, kindest men I have ever met. He deserved so much better, as did his family. There are others I know who are currently fighting this damn virus. My husband has 4 family members, 2 that are in the hospital now, one in very bad shape, and his sister and brother in law are recovering. We live in a "hotspot" of the disease, right across the river from NYC. In addition to all this, I spent the month of March in another life and death struggle with my dad and had to move my parents into an assisted living facility at the very worst time to do that. I put my family's health, and lives, at risk in order to take care of him in the hospital and move them. As if that wasn't bad enough, I have 2 sisters, who do not handle stress well, lash out at me in the middle of all this at a time when that was the last thing I or my family needed. Life looks very different right now from what it did just 6 weeks ago. Unimaginably different, when you consider everything that is going on.

I do not feel like celebrating. My family is fractured. People are sick and dying. Others are mourning the death of loved ones that took half their hearts with them when they left. Most everyone is living in fear right now of their own mortality and so many of the people I know have cancer so this virus is so much more risky for them. But, if there is one thing that I've learned in the 13+ years of living with the grief of my husband's MM diagnosis, it is this......being morose and depressed does not help any of those people. In fact, those people would probably be screaming at us to be grateful for what we DON'T have wrong in our lives on this day. I am, by no means, being dismissive of the feelings of people who are lonely and depressed in this lockdown, or those who mourn or are fighting for their lives. I am, instead, saying that we owe it to them to be grateful for what we have today. There is no damn sense in good people losing their lives in their 20's, 30's, 40's etc. But when we can't find sense, the only option left is to find meaning.

If you can breathe today without assistance, you are blessed. If you can get up and walk across your house or back yard, you are blessed. If you have someone to love that loves you, you are blessed. If you have food to eat and money to pay your bills, you are blessed. There are so many things that you might have going right in your life that others do not. We can pray for those people and we can help where we can. But, just like I don't think you honor a person who dies by spending the rest of your life mourning, I don't think we honor or help anyone by being so morose that we sit around catatonic about all that is wrong with the world.

So, today, I am going to concentrate of what is right with my life. And, I am going to try to push out the grief and fear as much as possible. I am going to try to find the flowers among the rubble. I am going to dwell on my family's blessings.

Happy Easter, Passover, and spring to y'all!!!

Adina

Yesterday, Adina died. She was only 45, diagnosed 5+ years ago. She leaves behind a great husband and 2 teenage daughters that need their mom. She fought like crazy to stay here. Her myeloma refused to allow that. Her story is a very difficult one. When she first fell ill, her doctor did not take her seriously. Sadly, this is very common, especially with women, and I've had this happen many times myself. Too many doctors try to blame stress or anxiety for women's ailments. Her doctor did not run blood tests or do any real testing, to my knowledge, to rule out illnesses. Finally, I cannot remember if she went to the hospital or her doctor, but she told whichever that she was dying and she was not leaving until they found out what was wrong with her. She was right. She was dying. She was in renal failure and had to start dialysis. She was then diagnosed with myeloma. She was, understandably so, furious at her doctor, who just said, "we don't expect to see myeloma in someone your age."

For the next 5+ years, Adina fought like hell to stay here for her family and try to keep their family's farm and finances solvent. But, like the truly amazing person she is, she also found a way to help others and make the world a better place. She started a myeloma support group in her area because there was none for folks like her and others fighting MM. With SO MUCH already on her plate, and while fighting for her own life, she found the time and energy to fill this need and give to others. That's how this beautiful woman rolled. She always tried to make the world a better place. She jumped in and did what she could.

On Feb 1st, she posted on Facebook that she was stopping treatment. She was out of viable options and the new treatment worked for a very short time and then stopped. She was tired of feeling so sick from the drugs, not getting much help from them, and being stuck in the hospital instead of spending time with her family. These are the final words of that post:

"I wish you all the best, please go out in the world and make a difference, be a good person, live a life worth living."

Adina did those things, but not nearly as long as she wanted and deserved to. If there is one thing I have seen, in the 13 years that I've been immersed in the world of myeloma, it's that myeloma seems to choose the best people, the most giving people. It's so damn unfair. Why can't it land on the selfish jerks of the world? I know it sounds awful to say something like that. But, seeing the most awesome people live with this and be struck down in the prime of their lives is painful and doesn't make one bit of sense.

Adina, you will never be forgotten. You made a difference.

Life of a caregiver

Today, I read a post written by a caregiver/wife. I'm not sure what her husband has, but he is dying. It was posted on a general spouse-caregiver facebook page. The last line of her post was, "and forgive yourself for not always being the best version of yourself." Oh boy, did that strike a chord with me. The truth is, being put into an insanely stressful situation does so many things to you. It can show you how strong you are. It can show you how weak you can be. It can bring out your best traits, but it can also bring out your worst. You operate on adrenaline, sometimes intense fear. Your marriage is tested CONSTANTLY. I remember, way back in the beginning of our journey, thinking that just when fate took me out at the knees, and I was feeling as weak, overwhelmed, and close to a nervous breakdown as I've ever been, I had to try to function at the highest level ever because my husband's life depended on it. My daughter was also depending on me to keep it together. I felt like I was putting a mask on every morning when I woke up. It was a mask that said, "I'm OK, I got this, I am strong, this isn't gonna beat me, he's gonna be OK, things are gonna work out." I did not believe any of those things, but I had to fake it so that my husband and our daughter thought I did. It was exhausting. Trying to be strong for SOOOO long and for everyone else is absolutely exhausting. It still is. And, just like you don't get to be 54 years old (in 3 days) and not have some regrets about things you said and did over all those years, you surely don't live under the intense pressure of living with cancer and not have regrets. Things you said, or did, or didn't do. Yup. They're there. And you know from listening to widows and widowers that the guilt you feel now doesn't hold a candle to the guilt you will feel later if/when you become one yourself.

How do we forgive ourselves? How many times have you told someone else to forgive themselves? that what they did wasn't that bad and understandable under their circumstances? Probably lots of times. But, are you able to forgive yourself in the same manner you council others to? If you're like me, the answer is no. This is something I've been working on in myself. I remember when Tim was first diagnosed, I felt bad for any and every cross word I'd ever said to him. I apologized to him for it and he said, "I'm not holding it against you." He'd done the same. We've been together almost 34 years now, over 12 of them living under the cancer cloud, in addition to plenty of other stressors and disappointments in our lives. We are human and this is a relationship between 2 people who are not carbon copies of each other, both dealing with a LOT of stress. Life is complicated. Messy even. Perfection doesn't exist here. So, we have to stop expecting it of ourselves. We have to understand that there are always going to be times in our lives when we stray a bit from the person we really want to be. We are not as patient as we'd like to be, as smart, as understanding. We don't know all the answers. We don't say and do the perfect things at all times. Unfortunately, we don't get to go back and undo some of the real bloopers that make us cringe every time we remember them, as much as we want to be able to go back and do better. So, the only other options are beat your freaking brains in about something you can't change anyway, OR

FORGIVE YOURSELF FOR NOT ALWAYS BEING THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF.

Because, honestly, we would not expect perfection in ANYONE living under the amount of stress that we're living under. We have to give ourselves a break and understand that we are doing the best we can and none of this is a perfect science. It's life. And life is messy. And it sure isn't perfect. And nobody, N-O-B-O-D-Y is ever the best version of themselves all of the time.

#forgiveness

Our baby is 21

It's been a week of ups and downs, mostly downs, which I will try not to delve too far into details about because this post will get too darned depressing. In my almost 54 years, there have been many times I have asked God for things that were not granted; sometimes begged would be a better word. A little over 12 years ago, that begging/praying was that the testing they were doing on my husband would not show cancer. We all know how that one played out. Over the next months/years, the prayer/begging turned to, "please don't let her lose her dad while in her formative years" and "please don't deny him the chance to see her grow up." (2 very well known MM specialists assured us he only had a few years left.) Well, for once (oh maybe there were a few more times in 53+ years) my prayers were answered. Her junior year in college is finished but she has the rental house until 5/19. She invited us down to her birthday party, before they went to the bar, where she would not have to use her fake ID for the first time. (insert eye roll here) We walked in the door to see her tan and tall (5'5" but wearing heals) and all gorgeous and made up. We were both taken aback. Where did our little girl go? The hardest thing about her being at college is not witnessing all the wonderful things happening in her life. At least we got to be part of this one. We are proud of her. Several boys came up to shake our hands and tell us how much they thought of our daughter. Girls hugged us that we don't even know and it was plain to see that our kid has made a lot of awesome friends at college. It was a happy night. Oh, and they all loved the dog. Our Lacey girl was a big hit.

But, and there's always a "but" isn't there? This is all so overshadowed this week, and always is really, with myeloma hanging over our heads. This week, it was the lives of others around us that made happiness feel so damn fragile. The day before we left to go see her, we were at a baseball game to support friends whose son killed himself on New Year's day. He was 21. They were throwing out the first pitch in his honor. This was a gorgeous, talented, amazing young man who had everything going for him, except for a vicious on-again, off-again girlfriend who was determined to make his life hell. Now, all we can do is be there for his parents and sister to show that he is not forgotten and that we are here. I hug them, HARD, when I see them, so they know I mean it. The day we got home, yesterday, I get a text from my friend that a woman we know died suddenly on Tuesday, right when her 21 year old twins are about to graduate college. Then, today, my sister calls me crying. Her friend's 17 year old son was diagnosed with leukemia at the end of Jan. and has been in the hospital ever since. Instead of getting ready to go to his junior prom, he was told things took a turn and he's going to have to have a bone marrow transplant after all. My sister had to run to her friend's house with a towel around her head because her friend "broke" sitting in her car in the driveway. She went over to hold her while she wailed to the heavens. She called out from work and is going to spend the afternoon with her. She told me she saw and heard things she will take to her grave. A grieving parent breaking after being strong for over 3 months. This is faith shattering stuff.

I got off the phone and thought about all that has happened to these families and realized that their lives entered a twilight zone, a place where nothing made sense anymore, just as our lives did on a Thursday back in March of 2007. A place where you cannot ever feel solid ground under your feet, where life is not fair or just, where you cannot even trust feeling happy because you wonder what's next. A place where you feel guilty for being happy because you know others have not seen their kid graduate high school or turn 21. A place where "friends" and even family members desert you because they don't want your problems messing up their lives. A place where you can't feel 100% joyful anymore. I hate the term, "new normal" so much. I know that it's something people tell newly diagnosed or traumatized folks so that they can hold out hope that their lives will normalize in some way, but, I'm sorry, this is just not normal. People being struck down in their prime, and children no less, getting cancer or dying is just not effing normal!!!!!! And feeling guilty for feeling a shred of joy is not normal either.

Before I went down to celebrate our daughter's birthday, I slipped a ring back on my finger that I wore for years but haven't in some time. I bought it while on vacation. The words, "live in the moment" are carved into it. In over 12 years, I have not been able to learn to do that very well. For one thing, I am a worrier and always seem to fret about the future and "what ifs." I feel jinxed after so many bad things happened in my life and always seem to be wondering when the other shoe will drop. Also, as an "empath" I get very upset by other people's pain. Sometimes, I have to stop and remind myself that I cannot take on everyone else's grief whilst struggling under my own. But, you just don't turn off caring for others when you have a big heart. However, I have to take full advantage of this answered prayer as long as I can. I have to try to live in that moment and soak it up.

SO, OUR KID IS 21. WE MADE IT!!! WE WERE BOTH HERE TO RAISE HER TO ADULTHOOD. WE ARE PROUD OF WHO SHE IS. MORE IMPORTANTLY, I THINK SHE IS PROUD OF WHO SHE IS. SO I'M GONNA BE HAPPY ABOUT THIS. WE DESERVE IT AND WE FOUGHT DAMN HARD FOR IT TOO !!!