Cancer. It Sucks.

I have been thinking of writing for awhile now. Getting my thoughts out and trying to process. I don't know quite how. I still don't know how to do day to day. It hit me today that we have been living with this thing called cancer for 10 weeks now. How is this possible? I am so tired. I am not as sad but my heart still hurts. This is so hard. There are are so many moments when I just don't feel like I can keep going. I know that I need move forward but I just don't know how. Then I hear a song, I read a verse, someone does something kind and I am reminded that this will all be for a purpose. The God I serve is bigger than this ugly thing called cancer. He is stronger than my weakest moments. He sees every tear, he hear every scream, he holds my heart in his hands. I have to cling to this and know that I am not alone.

Right now Matt feels ok. He has strength to put shiplap on my walls, to watch the boys, and to put new refrigerators in the coffee shop. He laughs and jumps on the trampoline with Tobi. He is Matt, just bald. But I know in one day he will not be doing this. He will be coping, surviving. He will be in bed and not doing anything. He will get up and go to MSTI and get hooked up to an IV for 5 hours every day this coming week. Then he will have his days following that are bad. The days that he won't barely get out of bed, he will not want to talk or have anyone around him. The days that I can't do anything for him. I have to watch him do this. Fight this. I will cry with him, try to give him anything that will help. This is where it is hard.

See, he is doing this and fighting his fight. I am keeping it all together. Trying. Failing. Succeeding. I am tired. I know tired. I am a midwife who knows the exhaustion of birth after birth with little time to eat or sleep. I know the feeling of pushing my body to the edge and knowing that it will end and I will sleep. I know babies, being a mama and having newborns. I know exhaustion. but this. This is a whole different tired. Every fiber of my being is maxed. My mind is torn. My body is done, and my heart is worn. I know He promises to be strength when we are weak but how does that work when the physical side takes over. The continuing of day in and day out working, keeping the kids and the business alive, and finding the time I need for my practice and my beautiful mamas. I go moment by moment. When crap hits the fan, and it does a lot around here, I clean it up. Me. My Matt is my partner and when one partner is down the other holds it all up. Gosh he does so much! Our life is beautiful and messy and it works because it works together. The balance is thrown so far off when one side is not there. How does it function? How do I do this? People keep saying to take time for myself, make sure that I take care of me. But when? What gives so that I can go for a run or a bike ride. What doesn't get done so that I can journal or read my Bible. Sleep, doing laundry, returning emails, getting supplies for Mocha Moose. Tell me, what? How? It doesn't. That's how. So I eat what I can grab, I drink a ton of coffee and not enough water, I sleep in spurts, I hug by babies when I can, I cry (a lot), I listen to music constantly, I keep going. That is the thing. I keep going. I move forward one moment one second at a time. I pray and I ask my sweet Father God to hold me up and to not let my feet slip. I let my heart break and I pray that this chemo will kill the cancer that is in my Matt's body. I beg and plead at the feet of Jesus that this will work. I take the meals that beautiful hands prepare, I learn to ask for help, I keep going. What else is there to do?

So my boys are upstairs sleeping and I should be but I sit for the precious quiet minutes that I can grab in my insane days. I leave tonight with a promise to remain thankful. I am thankful for the laughter we had with dear and old friends tonight. I am thankful that I can do the job of running and working Mocha Moose. I am thankful for Mocha Moose. I am thankful for the wonderful customers we have. I am thankful for my health through this. I am so thankful for the fat that we live in Boise, Idaho and we have the Mountain State Tumor Institute right here with amazing nurses, doctors,  and staff. I am thankful for the chemo that is pumping into my Matt that will kill the cancer in his body. I am thankful for this last week and the sweet moments we had together as a family. I am thankful for my Matt!! Oh how I love and adore that man in all his imperfect ways. I am thankful he is mine.