Shorts & Flip Flops

My husband had just retired in May 2017. We had moved from the suburbs to our place in the city, and he started having dull headaches every day. His doctor attributed it to the stress of all the changes…. Retirement, a move, and dealing with some family issues (brother with early-onset dementia and ex-mother-in-law with whom he was very close).

After numerous blood tests, physicals, a sleep apnea clinic, etc., his Dr suggested going to the ER so that all-inclusive tests could be done quickly, but my husband felt that to be extreme for “just a headache” so we were waiting out the requirements/referrals for insurance to cover a visit to a neurologist. 

During that time (October 16, 2017), he fainted at a pregame OSU party, which landed him in the ER after all. There, we learned he had a large mass sitting on the top of his corpus collusom. We never imagined this could be a possibility, and quickly, our plans for retirement changed. My husband’s dream was to move to Florida that year, and we had previously been online looking to buy a home there and be snowbirds, summering in the city and wintering in southwest Florida. Shorts and flip flops year round!!! 

He worked over 36 years for this dream, and now this. I had family in Ohio, where he was diagnosed, but our community for over 10 years was in Chicago, so that is where he wanted to have surgery and initial treatment. We were determined (with the help of family) to get to Florida that winter so that he could live his dream. After surgery and six weeks of standard radiation and chemo, along with a clinical trial, we moved to our new home in Florida right before Christmas. We were to have a 4-week break before starting the second phase of treatment at Moffit, who Northwestern had arranged for us to be transferred to and participate in the same clinical trial. 

However, when we went to our first appointment in January, the doctor dismissed him and told me to call hospice!!! Now we were in a new city, no friends or family…. I was pulled – should we go back to freezing Chicago to be near family and friends, or do we stay in shorts and flip-flops? I am so glad we stayed in Florida. It was scary and challenging, to say the least, but my husband had his winter in Florida. He relished those months with lots of sunshine, visitors, and every day in shorts and flip-flops! Unfortunately, it was his only one as he passed in May 2018, but he lived his dream even if not exactly the way we had planned.

Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.