Dance of the Animal Cracker Circus: Surviving Childhood Cancer and Marriage

I celebrated 8 years of marriage with this big guy on October 22nd, 2006. I still remember our wedding day like it was yesterday. It snowed. Our out door wedding turned into an indoor wedding. It was a day full of laughs and love. Though we've been married for 8 years, we've been together as a couple for what will be 13 years on November 8th.

When Son Circus #2 was first diagnosed with cancer we had been married close to 3 years.

My husband watching over our son after his first surgery, a biopsy of his liver and to repair a hernia in July of 2009.

The day that we found out that his cancer had spread, and he would need surgery, and would be starting chemo....was ON our 3rd wedding anniversary. I remember that day. We were FINALLY headed out on a date night, Son Circus #2 was still in "monitoring" mode where they were waiting to see what the cancer would DO before they made any decisions on a course of action (as he was only barely 3 months old at diagnosis and Neuroblastoma is such an odd cancer in kids under a year old).

Anyway, we had been stressing out on what was going on with our son and my husband said that he WAS GOING to take me out for our anniversary whether he had to drag me away from the kids or not. I needed a night out, to take my mind away from things even for a little while.

So my mother in law came down to watch the kids for a couple of hours so we could go to dinner and a movie.

Before we left for dinner we had to stop at the pharmacy to pick up some medication, I waited in the car while he ran inside to get it. While I was in the car, a phone call came in on the cell phone...it was the hospital. (Son Circus #2 had a scan the day before our anniversary) They were informing me that his cancer had spread, and he would need surgery, immediately and would start chemo a few days after surgery.

My husband came back out to the car to find me sobbing into the steering wheel.

Our world stopped, again.

To let things sink in and to let us calm down before going home to the kids so they wouldn't see us both crying, or sad, my husband insisted we at least still go out to dinner for our anniversary, because skipping our anniversary wasn't going to help our son.

I cried all through dinner. He was sad and solemn. The stares we got from other diners I will never forget. I wanted to scream at them "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE'RE GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW SO GO AWAY!!!"

That year...and the following year...was a VERY hard year for my husband and I. Though we had been together since 2001, we had only been married since 2006, and so we were still a young married couple (well after 8 years we still are!)

After our son had his 2nd surgery on October 30th, 2009, a week later he would begin chemo to treat Neuroblastoma. He had just turned 6months old.

I remember the first piece of advice I was given by a childhood cancer family right after Keegan was diagnosed with cancer in July of 2009.

"Don't let your sons cancer ruin your marriage. Because cancer doesn't just want your child, it wants everything you don't fight to let it take, your marriage included!" That stuck with me.

Let me tell you, we did have to fight. Our marriage struggled. Not because anything 'wrong' either of us did, neither of us cheated, we didn't fall out of love, we never physically hurt each other, there was no alcohol or drug addiction nothing like that in our marriage.

Family photo taken by my friend Paula the summer after our son was out of chemo.

There was fear. There was stress. There was cancer.

That can be enough to ruin a marriage.

We didn't know what tomorrow, or a week, a month, a year would bring our son. I felt mommy guilt because my child had been born with cancer. It OBVIOUSLY had to be something I had done, and I had apparently failed my child. Though I followed every drop of advice you are supposed to when pregnant, and I had never been a drinker/smoker/drug user in my entire life, and I had always eaten healthy, and tried to exercise as much as I could, and live a good life to stay healthy and have healthy babies in life. That guilt, can eat you alive! You eventually have to STOP living in the "what if's" and what caused it, and stop BLAMING yourself, because you DIDN'T give your child cancer.

Son Circus #2 helping his nurse with his port, getting ready for chemo.

I resented my husband for always being the one able to leave the house I felt "trapped" at home. We didn't have a vehicle 4 months after our son was diagnosed with cancer, it broke down and we couldn't afford to fix it, so we were car less. Plus, by then our son was going through chemo and had a compromised immune system RIGHT in the middle of cold and flu season. Taking my son grocery shopping was the LAST thing on my to do list!! Always taking care of the kids, never getting a break. It was always ME and the kids, from 5 in the morning, until late into the night because both sons had a HORRIBLE awful no good time sleeping at night. I felt over whelmed (infant twin sons, and a toddler, AND cancer all at the same time! Throw into the mix Son Circus #1was diagnosed with seizures, and my daughter started really struggling with her speech and SPD issues and I couldn't get anyone to listen to me that there was something wrong with my daughter (we had been struggling with her SPD issues since birth, we just didn't know that's what it was).

We had money problems as I hadn't been able to return to work. Right after my daughters first birthday my place of employment closed down and I was without a job, the day after I found that out...I found out I was pregnant again, a month later...found out it was twins. My doctor wouldn't ALLOW me to work because she said twins were a high risk pregnancy, even though I was perfectly healthy the whole pregnancy and was not having ANY issues at all. 12 weeks after the twins were born, I was ready to start looking for a job, they were old enough for day care at that point, and I REALLY needed to get back to work. However, that's when we found out our son had cancer. Returning back to work, wasn't an option anymore. It wasn't safe to put my immune compromised child in day care so I could work, or put his siblings in day care so they could bring heaven knows what back home to their brother. So staying home was what I did. We had car issues at that time too, as in we had no car. So the husband was walking to work or riding a bike to work, or to get groceries, or to pay bills. Bless his heart, he spent more time outside walking, riding a bike to do all of the errands that needed to be done than he spent at home. That's part of the reason I resented him, which was silly because he was doing things that NEEDED to be done for our family. We had NO family nearby to help us, and then, my husband had a heart attack and was out of work for awhile too do to medical reason. It was hard. Really, really hard.

We. Struggled.

We argued with each other A LOT. I felt like he didn't listen to me, and he didn't feel as scared over what was going on with our son as I did. Which wasn't true, he was as equally terrified as I was, I just never saw how he handled it. (Which was talking to friends at night after the kids and I were in bed, because he didn't want me to see him cry).

I was so convinced I wanted to divorce this man I once adored, that I even had the divorce papers and they had been filled out and just needed to be mailed in.

I was done. I couldn't handle any more.

I found myself staring at that envelope of papers every day. Unable to bring myself to put it in the mail. My Mother encouraged me to do what I felt I needed to do for our family. Some friends were encouraging, others were not. I wrestled with my decision. I hated cancer even more. I blamed cancer (when it wasn't REALLY cancers fault, it was ours for lack of communication and hurt feelings, and stress, and LIFE just getting between us).

First 'official' family photo taken by my friend Paula, the summer after our son was out of chemo.

However, during those two years of struggling, and crying, and praying to God for help....I watched this man. I watched him with our children. Sure, he wasn't ALWAYS the #1 dad, he had low patience, and was often too tired or in too much pain to play with them (Rheumatoid arthritis will do that to you). But he was amazing with the kids, and they loved him to the moon and back. I realized, so did I. That the whole time we had been together....it had ALWAYS been just the two of us. We always had each other to get through everything, together. We had never once broken up over petty stupid stuff most couples break up over in high school, or once they are out on their own. We weren't like that, we had always talked things through, and worked together and prayed to God to help us see a way. We never had family to come rescue us when we were in trouble. His dad had helped us out a total of three times, and we felt guilty for that help and we didn't want to ever have to have his help, or ask anyone in the family for help. We had to practically twist his moms arm to ever get her to come down and she only lived an hour and a half away. We always had to give or do something for her to come down, which was so hurtful. She couldn't ever just come down to visit her grand kids for the peer enjoyment of seeing her grand kids. We had to provide gas money, or take her out to eat, or buy her groceries, or cook her dinner at our house, we just always had to DO something in order for her to come down (and it had been that way since we moved out on our own, it wasn't a new thing). So since we were 17/18 we only had to rely on ourselves because no one else was ever there for us. We faced a lot of struggles then too, before kids! My husband worked 3 jobs at one time usually just to make sure all the bills were paid while I went to college and worked as many hours at my job as I could, and in the summer I worked 2-3 jobs as well so we could get savings built up and prepare for our wedding, and hopefully some day have children. We never once thought we'd have a child born with cancer and would face all of these other struggles.

This photo taken by my friend Paula. The summer after our son was out of chemo. Our daughter loves her Daddy and has always had him wrapped around her little finger. I remember when I was pregnant with her he was terrified that she would hate him and not want anything to do with him. Couldn't be further from the truth! She loves her Daddy big time!

My husband and Son Circus #1, he would point to everything, and my husband would tell him what it was. Again, a photo taken by my friend Paula, the summer after Son Circus #2 was out of chemo.

I wasn't about to let Cancer take my husband from me. Cancer couldn't have my child, and it couldn't have my marriage either! I may not have been able to fight cancer for my son, but I could certainly fight for my marriage.

This was taken by my friend Paula, the summer after our son was done with chemo. We were still really really struggling in our relationship but we were really trying.

That's exactly what we did.

We talked. There were tears, tons of feelings and emotions. We let it all out. If we needed to yell, we yelled. We said what we needed to say and let the other person do the same. We hugged, we cried, we sobbed. We prayed.

This guy, he's my rock. When our son was first diagnosed with cancer I went blank. My brain and mouth quit on me and I just sat there like a lump unable to talk, my brain processing what I had just heard.

My husband who isn't a man of many words, it was like he was suddenly connected to my brain and syphoring all of the questions and words that I needed to say, out of my head and into his, and he asked every single question I would have and NEEDED to ask. He paid attention to every word the doctor said.

Our son had a total of 2 major surgeries, and I was glued to my sons side, same during his chemo's. You couldn't pry me from my son. I would hold my bladder till it felt like it would explode, I wouldn't eat, I didn't want to leave him for a minute to even get in the shower.

My husband reminded that "HEY, your human too, you have needs you need to attend to, you need to EAT, go to the bathroom, go take a shower, relax, take a walk, go play with your other kids, it's ok I have Keegan, he's fine with me, and he's fine with the nurses for just a few minutes, they love this kid, and he'll be ok" He reminded me constantly that he was THERE and that he CARED and that he was as equally able to care for our sick child as I was.

At the time I didn't see it. I was blind to everything around me, I had tunnel vision. The ONLY thing I saw was my child, with cancer, who was fighting for his life.

If my husband hadn't been around I wouldn't have eaten the whole time Keegan was in the hospital each time. I would have taken even worse care of myself. He made me find reasons to go take a shower, go get dressed in actual clothes not PJ's, brush your hair, put on some make up, and GO somewhere, go do something. Don't forget, you still have two other children who are looking to you. Not to say I didn't pay attention to my other kids, I definitely did, I showered them with as much of my love as I did my other child. Again, though, mom guilt ate me up because Daughter Circus and Son Circus #1 had to spend time away from us at times due to their brothers surgeries and chemo. It was hard. I had NEVER been away from my children like that until cancer. It was hard. I beat myself up majorly.

My husband had the ability to stay calm when I was falling apart. Which at the time I thought was HORRIBLE I thought it meant he didn't care because he wasn't emotional over it like I was. He just knew that if HE got emotional, that I would completely fall apart, and so would our kids, so he stayed strong, so I would have someone to cry on. He cared, he cared very deeply. Even to this day I will catch him staring at our son, and I will see him tear up a little because he is thinking back to all that boy has gone through. When our son went through chemo (in the middle of winter) my husband shaved his head bald for our little guy (which Keegan found hilarious, he loved Daddy's bald head).
I definitely do not handle stress well, stress, well it stresses me the hell out. I am easily frazzled and often feel like I am completely falling apart. It sucks, big time. Anxiety attacks through the years have been my worst nightmare. Thankfully my husband does not stress out the way I do! He is my balance!

So to my husband I say, happy 8 years of marriage, and happy 13 years of being together as a couple. I would be seriously lost without you. We've had our ups and downs and in betweens. There is no one else I would rather have gone through life with thus far!

Our first photo taken together as a "couple" when we were dating in high school, the summer before we started Senior year, taken by my good friend Paula.

Our Senior Prom, he was not a fan of the grand march, he doesn't like big crowds of people staring at him.

This photo taken by my friend Paula just a month or so after we moved away from home for college. I love this photo and we still have it framed around the house.

Having a night out together a couple of months before we got married. We were hanging out at a local bar for the Karaoke (we are huge karaoke fans! We never went to the bar to drink, but we loved the Karaoke!)

I love you. I'm so glad you are my husband and the father to our children. I'm so glad I didn't follow through with that divorce. I'm glad I relied on God to be in our marriage and help us through. It wasn't easy, life never is, especially when you are fighting to hold things together during an already difficult time. We still have our struggles from time to time.

This photo was taken on my husband's birthday last year when we were out getting my daughters birthday photo's done, the kids just randomly ran up to him and attacked him with a hug, snapped the photo at the perfect moment! Have this photo framed and hanging on the wall I love it.

This photo was taken on our anniversary this year.

You could help with the dishes more, and take the trash out when you see it is full and I'm busy with the kids. I could be less bossy, and a little less uptight.

We now say how we're feeling, we get mad, we get over it, we move on. We can't stay mad at each other, we hate being mad at each other.