Author: janep38

After Troy came home he started his chemo and radiation. I remember his first appointment with his oncologist, she said he was stage 4 and she could try and take him to near death with treatments but she was only going to treat him so that he would be able to eat hamburgers again. She didn’t ask him what he wanted, she made the decision for him. She failed on being able to eat hamburgers, he was never able to eat anything. The radiation treatments left him with lots of stomach pain. He said it felt like his chest was burned on the inside. I would sometimes go with him, and it saddened me to see all the people sitting there waiting on their treatments. At the same time, my aunt Beulah (who treated me like her daughter) was showing signs of dementia. I had been trying for years to get her to come and live with us, but she always declined. She was a Worley and they are known to be very stubborn. We talked weekly and she always wrote me. I could tell when I talked to her that her mind was not what it used to be. I couldn’t go help her because Troy needed me here. I remember when we had just moved here, we were staying with my brother, and we needed to find our own place to stay and EDS was talking about getting just Troy an apartment, I told him I could take the kids back to Indiana until the house sold and we could move into a house. I remember him saying please don’t do that, I couldn’t make it here without my family, so I knew I couldn’t leave him during his fight to go and help my aunt.

Troy would be in the hospital for a while so the hole in his esophagus could close. Before he would leave there he would have to have a feeding tube inserted in his stomach. He still couldn’t swallow food. He would never again be able to swallow food. Troy loved eating. It was so sad to see someone that loved eating not be able to. I felt guilty eating in front of him, or cooking and the smell would be throughout the house, yet he would not be able to eat any. I loved his breakfast burritos that he made with potatoes. Even though he couldn’t eat them, he would make them for me. I remember standing in the kitchen looking at him and he said “it is what it is”. He had tears in his eyes, I said “you can’t leave me here by myself.” He gave me a big hug. The thought of him not being around was more than I could take.

We waited for the ambulance to transport Troy to the hospital. The doctor said he would probably need surgery to repair the hole. I was getting angrier and angrier at the nurse who kept telling Troy to be quiet. I could tell he was in severe pain. After he got to the hospital, I told a nurse that another nurse was getting on Troy for moaning. She said that’s very painful when that happens. They started giving him morphine and I could see the relief starting. Surgeons decided against surgery because the cancer had already spread to his lungs and liver. He was admitted to ICU and it was very important that he didn’t swallow anything. If he did, it could cause an infection. I told his doctor that I didn’t appreciate how he was being treated at the other facility. I received a call the next day apologizing for the way the nurse treated Troy. This was the start of Troy’s fight with cancer.

October 16, 2013 turned out to be the start of the biggest challenge me and Troy would face together. I took my data to my job in Plano, loaded it on their computer, finished any changes I needed to make and headed for home. We left shortly after I got home for Troy’s appointment. This was supposed to be an easy test, and after he woke up we were supposed to head home. But that’s not how it went down at all. He went back to the procedure room and then some time later the nurse came to get me. When I got back to where Troy was , he was moaning as if he were in a lot of pain. The words that came out of the doctors mouth were “I think your husband has cancer”. I felt my heart drop to the floor and was just sure I heard him wrong. I wanted to scream NO MY HUSBAND CANT HAVE CANCER!! Then he said he accidentally perforated his esophagus obtaining a biopsy. Troy was moaning, the nurse was getting on him about making noise and my head was spinning. This can’t be happening! NO!! I exited to the bathroom just to collect my thoughts and feelings. I was in such disbelief that this was happening. I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted a redo on the day. Can we please start over with a different end result. I know God was with me, otherwise I would have never made it. Thank you God. To be continued….

I remember asking for October 16th off from one of my jobs. I told my boss that Troy was having a procedure done, and he needed me to drive him home afterwards. What I was about to find out was I needed the day off for more than just that.

Just found out that Troy’s cousin Sue passed away. I had kept in touch with her after Troy’s death but recently I hadn’t heard from her. Her and Troy were close. They graduated the same year. I remember her grandmother working at Maddys Department store when I was a kid. She was such a nice woman and so was her mother who worked at the bank in Middletown. We saw Sue at the last reunion we went to. She was quite the character. She was always laughing and cutting up. Sue, please tell Troy hi from me. At this time in 2013, we were still in what I would call the normal zone. Like I said it was about to make a major change.

The days leading up to the 16th of October were ordinary. Troy was binge watching Breaking Bad and of course I was trying to catch up on my computer job I did at home. I was always working, 7 days a week and most holidays. This was so everyone could have and do all the things they wanted. I look back now and see really how selfish they all were. As long as they got what they wanted everything was ok, but no one ever ask me what I wanted. I didn’t want to work all the time. There were things I wanted too. I guess I let myself get off message here. As I was saying, things seemed ordinary but in a few days nothing would be ordinary, they would be anything but.

When I think of all that transpired in October of 2013, it seems like yesterday. It’s still so fresh in my mind. All the little details are still there. It hasn’t faded from my memory at all. Perhaps it never will, after all it was such a significant event in my life. Forever changed my course, my direction. What seemed to be nice and neat was about to be scattered everywhere. I couldn’t stop it even though I wanted too. I had to let the pieces fall where they may. And then slowly try to piece everything back together. Some pieces no longer fit even though I tried to jam them back together. Nothing made since anymore, where was this going. There were some pieces I couldn’t even find.

October of 2013 was the beginning of our nightmare. We went to Florida that September, I had been asking Troy where he wanted to go on vacation. I mentioned Las Vegas cause we always liked going there, but he chose Florida. He was really struggling with keeping food down and said he wanted to go see the ocean again. I think he knew how sick he was. He had a doctor appointment when we got home and they said the test results looked okay, the next step was to look into his stomach with an endoscope. Of course I had no idea that would be our last vacation together, like I said the beginning of our nightmare.

Had dinner yesterday with our tribe. It’s nice getting together with others that you can share what you are dealing with. Maybe I should pass a handout out at our next dinner, lol. Get their opinion on it.