And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Spring time is heaven.

I usually adore this time of year. It was this time of year - in fact, two weeks from this day, 18 years ago - I met my husband and soulmate. God knows I love him. I have so much hope for us to remain together into old age. I have no idea what I would do without him in my life. I often shake my head at his silly side, and his humor is so dry and strange at times I wonder I laugh, but I can't ever help it. Those are the good times. They aren't all that great. Sometimes our lives together since the cancer diagnosis are dark and dreary, and forlorn. Those are the time when I feel blue, like I am tonight.

For some reason, when things are bothering him, he turns to friends, music, TV, and often just plain solitude rather than turning to me. I automatically imagine that this is because I am not listening to him enough, or reaching out to him, so I try that, and it fails. He still seems to push me away. I believe it is because he doesn't like me to see him weak.

We found out last Thursday, April 8, that there was more cancer. They removed it where they found it, which was two small areas in his bladder. They are doing some cultures on the urine taken from his only remaning kidney to see if there are suspicious or obviously positive cancer cells there, too. Of course, that would be the worst thing. Just hearing that there is cancer in his bladder fills me with terror though. I haven't let him know that. I can't tell him that.

Life is so fragile. I look at him and see how pale he is from chemotherapy, and see his peach fuzz growing in on the top of his bald head and wonder how we could have gotten from where we were so many years ago to this. I never wanted to believe he had cancer, even when the doctor faced me with that news immediately after finding it. Part of me kept wanting to believe it was a mistake. Even the cytology on his urine back in Feb of this year told us he had cancer in his bladder, and then the repeat second test said it was a false positive. Well, it wasn't false. He did have cancer. These cancer tests don't seem to be so foolproof. The only way to actually find it is to get your face down there and look for it. Well, we did that and the results aren't pleasant.

I read somewhere that out of 60,000+ people, 12,000+ died from this type of cancer in the bladder. Do you know how scared that makes me? I just saw where one of my contacts on another site lost her husband. He was a five year cancer 'survivor' and it came back 'with a vengeance' she said. Took him away. Just like that. He lived his life normally after he went into remission. I don't know whether that meant that he wasn't monitored frequently like my husband has to be, but I have to wonder. Do doctors do enough?

My husband's original cancer surgery was in October, and here it is April and the cancer was found again. New cancer. Not from the original site at all. (If it were, he would be terminal). Because the cancer that was originally found in his kidney was technically Bladder Cancer, there was a 40% chance of recurrence of that type of cancer IN THE BLADDER, which is just what happened. The fact that he had it in his kidney was extremely rare (approximately 7% of all cancers are this type of cancer in the kidney first).

The doc did not seem surprised that there was new cancer in the bladder. He seemed concerned about that remaining kidney, but not surprised, as the odds said it may happen. Well, it did. It was removed, but when will it rear its ugly head again? I just know somehow, that it will.

Cancer sucks. It makes people sad. It sucks joy from our hearts. It takes away soulmates. It makes strong women like me just crumble into little babies (behind closed doors, that is). I can't even tell him how scared I am or how I don't want to live without him. I do tell him how much I love him and what he means to me, every day. I just feel like sometimes he doesn't even hear me. Maybe it's because he needs me so much right now he forgets that at one time he just plain wanted me, too. Does that make sense?

Oh we are silly, romantic goofs sometimes. We still hold hands when we sleep at night. He laid beside me the other night and rubbed my back because he knew it was hurting me. He rubbed it for a long time... until I fell asleep. This man that had cancer and is in chemotherapy, running to the toilet to throw up and full of ill feelings most of the time right now, laid there and RUBBED MY BACK. He just didn't know that tears were flowing from my eyes as he did that, it touched me so much.

What am I going to do if I lose him?