What I have learned

No one can know the countless hours I have spent praying and begging God for my husband to get better. For years my prayers have been for this dreaded tumor to go away and his brain to heal back to the way it used to be. Night after night, this has been my plea to my Heavenly Father. I was so focused on what I thought I wanted that I didn't want to hear what he had planned for my family. I thought I wanted Jeff to get better because that is what would heal our family. That is what would make us happy again. I prayed so hard and had such great faith, but things were only getting worse. How could Heavenly Father not answer any of my prayers like that? And how did he expect me to keep moving forward when the wind was blowing so hard in the other direction? My life was broken, my heart was broken. It took a hard battle, but among all of my prayers I realized all I REALLY wanted was to be happy again. I wanted to know that I COULD be happy again. It took longer to realize this than I would like to admit but; He knows better than I do. It seems so simple now but it came to me as an epiphany. Although I would really love for Jeff to be healed, I needed to start praying for what was really important. I needed to stop fighting for what I thought would bring us happiness and start praying for our family to find joy in everyday struggles. Praying for the ability to be happy and find happiness. Because, its not about having a healthy husband or a better job, or a different circumstance, that determines your happiness. Its you that determines your happiness. I had to let go of what I thought I wanted and realize that other paths can give us the results and outcome we truly want in our lives. I had to realize that Heavenly Father knows what he is doing and he LOVES me. Even thought I have to go through crap. He still loves me. From now on, I am no longer going to pray for Jeff to be healed (although that would be awesome). What I really want is for our little family to find Joy. I am going to pray that everyday we can find a moment of complete bliss. We all have struggles and we all have to deal with moments of grief and pain that no one else can possibly understand. If we pray to find joy and happiness in our lives, it will come, no matter what our circumstances.  

The road ahead

I have been having a hard time with this post because of some mixed emotions. I know I should be feeling joy and excitement but I am so sorry to say I am not. I don’t know if it is because I don’t want to allow myself to finally feel a sense of relief or if its because I can see there is still a long road ahead. Jeff did have his appointment with the radiation oncologist and the news was good news. He said, "We hope we have put the cancer to sleep". The original tumor is still there and always will be. A lot of the swelling has gone down and things look like they did on pre-cancer scans. Jeff has a long road ahead and will need to work hard on making connections and memory. Things are still very cloudy for him and although he has been out working with his Dad, he still has a hard time understanding and following conversations. Everything I have seen and all of my research tells me he can get better and through neuroplasticity, his brain can make new connections. I have great hope for him in the future but since this has been the 3rd round of bad news in 4 years, I am sure you can see my reservations. Now it is up to us to decide how things are going to turn out.