Intimate Awakening

On August 15, 2009, a beautiful day after photographing a wonderful family union celebration, I came home to my sweet family in such gratitude and delight. Feeling on top of the world, in bliss, and grateful for what a wonderful life I live. My son Kanyon, and sweet husband Darol, were having a great time playing together when I arrived. We enjoyed a bit of the afternoon together and Kanyon fell asleep shortly after nursing on our family bed. Sweet, time for some alone time with Darol. We created a wonderful couch cushion bed in our creative space and stood in the room hugging, kissing, looking into each other's eyes and speaking words of gratitued to one another. My words here don't do justice to the extacy of the moment and wonderful feelings we shared. With tears, and holding Darol close I said, " I love you so much Darol. Sometimes I get scared you're going to die on me, and you better not." He looked at me deeply, kissed me, and held me tight.

We proceeded to stretch and Darol ended up lying on his back on our newly designed temporary bed, stretching his knees to his chest. I was sitting on the floor near him. Darol began crying a deep hard cry, I opened up the space with gratitude for his tears, placed my hand on his knee gently, and I witnessed him express. A moment later he grabed my hand and placed it over his right inner thigh, allowing me to feel a lump the size of a small golfball.

Shocked as I felt the lump, scared, and reaching for a positive perspective, a moment of silence.
I told him that this could be nothing, and that I knew he could heal this. We discussed it for a long period of time, me asking questions like when did you notice it, and planning to call the Dr. for testing it. We held eachother tight and close, crying, and cuddling the rest of the day.

I filled my week of concern with fun adventures to places with my son and nephew. The test was scheduled for Wednesday, and we didn't recieve the results until late Friday.

This indeed is the Third bout of Melenoma that I face with my husband. As we found out the next week when they aspirated Darol's right inner thigh lump, and another lump in his chin on the left frontal side. The test's came back positive. I was shocked that both places were positive, I felt that lump on his chin about a week before the discovery of his thigh lump and attributed it to recent dental work and Darol having been ill the week before. I had been ill and Kanyon had had a fever, so I really thought it was a swollen gland making up for his loss of his lymph nodes in his right axillary, which was taken during the second bout of melenoma in January 2008, a few weeks after our son Kanyon was born. Plus, he had been having regular visits with the oncologist and had been clear of any signs of cancer.

More tests the following Thursday for MRI, and CT scans. We went in on Friday, August 28, 2009, and recieved the crushing results. They diagnosed lesions in his brain, two on the right frontal side about 2 mm in size, one about the size of a thumb on his neck left side base of his skull, (I could feel this one and attributed it to a swollen neck from muscle strain he had had for about a week), one on his right chest near his original site, a few around his kidney, some in the omentum of the stomach lining, a large one about 2 inches in his psoas muscle on the left side, and of course the ones that originally were tested.

We were immediately set up to see a chemotherapist Dr. about an hour later. We went to the Red butte Garden, sat on a swing, hugged, cried, watched humming birds, and dragonflys, and cried some more.

Back at the Huntsman Center with the chemo Dr. he painted a very ugly picture and treatment plan with no cure. I had many questions for him and he finally had to excuse himself saying that his next person would no longer ignore him. I felt ok with it since he only offered about a 5% success rate for his patients responding positively to the treatments he offered.

We went and picked up Kanyon and went home and cried some more.

We had a friend and family filled weekend of support. How blessed we are with so many wonderful people in our lives!

Tuesday we spoke with another Dr. this time a radiologist. He answered our questions and offered a more hopeful view and outcome of his treatment to the brain. A 70% success rate meaning positive response to it, the lesions going away and possible recurring lesions within 3 years.

We are hopeful and have many opporunities to explore yet.
We have many possibilities before us and we are looking to keep positive. The big questions remain:
What is the gift of this experience?
How can we create more love with this experience than we ever imagined?
What is the best path for Darol on his healing journey?

Darol has his own blog where you can find his entries. http://darolsjourney.blogspot.com

I get to trust Darol in his choice of what he believes will heal him, and of course give him my intuition and loving support. I know we will get through this, even though there are times when I am freaking out and cry hard. I get to trust and believe and visualize Darol's complete and final healing.

Join me in the vision of Darol being vibrante, healthy, balanced, and whole and us living a long life together.