A Key Was Turned
My husband has always been a picture of health. He was full of life and he enjoyed every minute of it. He was a soccer player in his youth and as an adult. He had a dream and that was to get an education as a Computer Programmer. He worked many jobs to make that dream come true. He has the persistence and determination that was boundless. He turned night into day to make what was impossible achievable. He was a man filled with positivity.
When illness struck in May 2016, it was as if a key was turned. One day he was healthy and in an instant he became terribly sick. On that fateful day, he had a pain on his back that was searing, unrelenting, and unrelieved by any home remedy or physical agent. As a soccer player, he was not a stranger to pain. This was not a pain that he related to.
I took him to Harbor Hospital and the doctors told him he had metastatic cancer. It was a death sentence that was difficult to take. All this time, my husband believed that he made a truce with cancer. Diagnosed in 2002 with prostate cancer and given only six months to live, how can anyone convince him that he was dying when he should have died 14 years ago?
He lived with this diagnosis but he refused to die by it. He turned this belief of self affirmation into a daily celebration of life. He believed he has cancer but cancer did not have him. He believed the doctors were wrong about his diagnosis. How can he not when he seemed to have cheated life once more after given dire news of his impending death what seemed ages ago?
Before this recent diagnosis of metastatic cancer, he was jogging five miles a day, going about his daily business and even completing a certification class at Towson University. Without a moment’s notice, he changed overnight. This time though the realization that he was dying was imminent. My husband who cheated life at birth finally came to terms with the finality of death.
We are all born to die. When, where, and how we die is unique to our own particular life purpose. In the end, death catches up with us and no one is spared from this journey. Young or old, rich or poor — we all transition to a new life we know nothing about. Life ends and a new one begins.
When illness struck in May 2016, it was as if a key was turned. One day he was healthy and in an instant he became terribly sick. On that fateful day, he had a pain on his back that was searing, unrelenting, and unrelieved by any home remedy or physical agent. As a soccer player, he was not a stranger to pain. This was not a pain that he related to.
I took him to Harbor Hospital and the doctors told him he had metastatic cancer. It was a death sentence that was difficult to take. All this time, my husband believed that he made a truce with cancer. Diagnosed in 2002 with prostate cancer and given only six months to live, how can anyone convince him that he was dying when he should have died 14 years ago?
He lived with this diagnosis but he refused to die by it. He turned this belief of self affirmation into a daily celebration of life. He believed he has cancer but cancer did not have him. He believed the doctors were wrong about his diagnosis. How can he not when he seemed to have cheated life once more after given dire news of his impending death what seemed ages ago?
Before this recent diagnosis of metastatic cancer, he was jogging five miles a day, going about his daily business and even completing a certification class at Towson University. Without a moment’s notice, he changed overnight. This time though the realization that he was dying was imminent. My husband who cheated life at birth finally came to terms with the finality of death.
We are all born to die. When, where, and how we die is unique to our own particular life purpose. In the end, death catches up with us and no one is spared from this journey. Young or old, rich or poor — we all transition to a new life we know nothing about. Life ends and a new one begins.