David

David

Cecily

I first met David when I was 14 years old, we have been married for 27 years and we have three wonderful sons and most recently we were blessed with an adorable grandson, Diesel. He is my one and only love, my best friend, and the person whom I wanted to get old with. When 2014 started I was entering my last semester of nursing school and David and I had BIG plans, there was so much we wanted to do, especially with the fact that I would be going back to work once I graduated and having two incomes would allow us to do so many things. However, that would not be, at the end of 2013 I started to notice that David was losing weight, so in January I scheduled him for a physical, on January 30th his chest x-ray came back showing a spot on his lung. After numerous doctors appointments and testing, it was found that he had a nodule on his left upper lung and that he needed to have a lobectomy.

On 3/10/14 David had a left upper lobectomy, everything went well, it was found that his cancer was Stage l, he spent 6 days in the hospital. On 3/20/14 David had a seizure at home and was again admitted back into the hospital, it was found that he had a tumor on his right frontal lobe, on 3/28/14 he had a craniotomy, his lung cancer had now metastasized to his brain, it has now become Stage lV. Prior to all this my husband had one doctor, his PCP, whom he saw about once a year and also had never been hospitalized. He now has seven doctors and has been hospitalized three times in one month. David had always been the primary wage earner, he handled all the finances, he was a workaholic and was always on top of things, and most of all he also loved riding his motorcycles. Within the past three months our roles have shifted, due to the brain cancer he is unable to work, he is unable to drive, his short term memory and his speech process has been affected, he is on medication for pain, seizures, steroids, anxiety, and several others. I have now become his caregiver, the decision maker, the wage earner and his driver.

Our lives will never be the same, cancer is on our minds day and night, the fact that he has an incurable cancer and we now have to learn to live our lives day by day. Our emotions have been like a rollercoaster, there are so many times I have found myself being angry, depressed, crying, and even questioning a higher being, however, I know that in the end God will be the one to decide the outcome of all of this. David recently finished his treatment of radiation and that was very hard on him, unfortunately he had numerous side effects and he continues to struggle with fatigue. Next week we start chemo and we shall see how he handles that. At this point in our lives we have no choice but to be strong and fight, unfortunately this has caused us to change whatever plans we had, but we will not give up. We have been fortunate to have had really good support from family and friends, he has also had some amazing doctors and this has helped us to get his far. Only God knows what he has planned for us, but for now we will enjoy every day and appreciate all the amazing things that we have accomplished together and I am proud to say that on 5/27/14 I graduate with my RN degree. We will continue to fight.

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