It's becoming more clear lately how I have completely lost myself over the past several months, possibly several years. Amy was terribly ill for 2 1/2 years and it's been almost a year since she has passed. Since her passing, my confusion and grief has been overwhelming and I've been grasping at anything I thought could bring me a bit of relief and validation. Anything which led me to somehow feel connected to something other than what I had just gone through and the state of feeling utterly lost, and in many respects, abandoned. This led to a lot of avoidance and unhealthy behaviors.
Amy's cancer turned a serious corner overnight while she was visiting her mother in Arkansas. Her staunch Southern Baptist mother who despised me and the "sin" she thought I brought to her daughter was more concerned about the "nature of our relationship" than she was the fact her daughter was in grave condition. Amy's family essentially thought she was going to die and Amy was weak and ineffective. They tried to bar me from seeing Amy. Here I was in Arkansas in a terribly time sensitive situation knowing that Amy would decline if she didn't return to the hospital where there was more sophisticated treatment options but she was too weak to travel. Typical of Amy, she had a burst of strength and will which gave me a window to fly her back to San Diego. This hospitalization resulted in us having to move almost immediately from our home in the desert almost 3 hours away to where she could receive medical care in San Diego. My parents' home was in escrow so we could only have a short stay there. We had no place to live and I found myself back in San Diego with no business since I had moved and grown my business up in the desert. I had to find a foster place for all our animals as well including chickens and a horse. So, I'm placed in a situation where we have no home, I have little income, spinal tumors are growing in Amy's back and the pain is becoming unmanageable. I'm having to continue paying mortgage on the desert home but I somehow orchestrate using it successfully as a vacation rental for almost a year until it became unfeasible as an absentee owner. I then had to swallow my pride and short sale our home that we had put so much time and effort into and where so many memories were built.
Meanwhile, my parents are moving because my father is declining physically and mentally. We move out of their home since it went into escrow and attempt to stay with a friend in their RV but it's too isolated and my commute to work is almost an hour. So, we stay with another friend for 3 months. What a wonderful friend. Amy had to have radiation on her spine during this transition cause the tumors were growing and morphine couldn't control the pain. She is thin, weak and previously was hospitalized in ICU for a pericardial effusion after the Arkansas hospitalization. We are running out of treatment options also. I'm constantly thinking about the plan for treatment, trying to grow my business, manage the house in the desert, and always worried about Amy's emotional and physical well-being. The anxiety and overwhelm is simply indescribable. I didn't realize it when I was in it. As a caregiver for someone you love, you just do it. When I think back to that situation I get knots in my stomach. I lived that way for more than 2 years.
We get an offer to house sit a wonderful home for 3 months and leave my friend's home where we were staying. This was a nice break. Amy is undergoing a different treatment and she has significant side effects but the cancer is not growing. She is far from herself. She never feels well any more. She can't exercise. She is sad and I am terrified most of the time. But, we make do. We find pleasure and joy in simple things like a hot tub and watching a TV program together. We continue to laugh and appreciate one another. People are largely absent as they think "everything is fine". After all, Amy had been fighting melanoma for about 7 years at this point. They had no idea what we were going through.
Our house sitting is coming to an end and we need a place to live. My business is a bit better, but not great. Money is so so tight. I find a trailer on a 83 ranch about 45 minutes from San Diego that we can rent. Amy loves the ranch. We take it. The hoops I had to jump through for the short sale are mostly complete and I'm just waiting to hear on that. Our dogs, horse and chickens can return to us. We move in. Shortly after that, Amy starts to worsen. She starts to fall... her legs are getting weak and giving out at times. We get the dreaded news... "your tumors are growing in your spine". If memory serves me correctly, we tried another treatment that had worked in the past... an infusion treatment over the course of 3 months. It didn't work. By then, Amy is getting really bad. I can't remember when she had radiation but she had it twice on her back. I can't remember a lot of details. I do know that while at the ranch my father was put on hospice and we helped care for him at my parents' home and my father passed away. Amy, who was struggling with cancer, helped care for my dad. That was just like her. He passed in September, 2012. It was right after Christmas that year when things declined ever more. The tumors were causing pain that couldn't be controlled, her weight was at an all time low and she was in a wheelchair because the tumors had compressed the nerves so badly. I did research and found a clinical trial out of UCLA. We got her in and started somehow despite all the medical hoops which had to be jumped through. The trial decreased the size of the tumors for about a year, but she never got very good use of her legs, walked with a limp, had digestion and elimination problems, significant numbing and pain from from severe neuropathy. During the trial, I knew we had to get closer to support so we again moved... this time into our own home near my mother and brother. Amy loved the house. We found ourselves around wonderful neighbors. We had "peace in our valley" as Amy would always describe a quiet, secure feeling piece of land in which you find yourself.
The clinical trial stopped working in January, 2014. The tumors were again growing in her spine. We found out it metastisized to her liver. I won't describe the rest. The journey we went through cannot be put into words. It was horrendous. I don't know how Amy fought like she did. I don't know how I did it. I don't know how I held up as well as I did. No wonder I am having such a hard time. I really didn't sit to reflect what all I had gone through until recently... and it's almost a year since she passed. I have not taken the time to heal, reflect, soothe myself and as God for healing. There is a lot to repair, restore and make better. It's going to take time.
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