Moms Don’t Get Sick

I could lie to you and say it was love at first sight for Sam and me but that would be a very large lie. He was calling names at the auditions for our college’s Co-Ed acapella group and I was laying on the floor having a panic attack. When he called my name I looked up at him and said “oh no, that’s me” and he said thick with judgement “why are you on the floor?”.

Did my angelic voice and astounding audition win him over, you ask? You mean the audition where I compared myself to a squirrel on coke and kept referring to myself in the third person? Nope. That wasn’t it either. He would go on to vote “No” to me being in the group because I seemed like I would be a “distraction”. Jokes on you, pal. He would be out-voted and I would go on to distract him for the rest of his life.

It took about a year for the stars to align, we were good friends and didn’t want to ruin it. That’s when Sam asked me on a “practice” date. If you know Sam, this doesn’t sound weird at all. He wanted to go on a date but if by the end it didn’t seem right, we could pretend it never happened. Folks. I was Katie fricking Quigley. You don’t go on a date with me and pretend it never happened. You’re either madly in love with me or the date haunts your nightmares till your dying day.

He took me and his type A personality to the NC Zoo on a chilly November day and proceeded to lay out his life plan. He wanted to graduate in the spring, go to medical school on the military’s dollar, and he wanted a wife who dreamed of a large family who was in support of it all. He ended it by telling me if that wasn’t something I could get behind then we weren’t going to work out. Romantic, right? In front of the swinging spider monkeys, this boy was asking me to either jump on his moving train or to back out now. Normal women may have seen red flags but as we have discovered…I am not normal. I saw a determined, intelligent, good looking guy who had it all planned out.

All of Sam’s life, he would make plans, stick to them, and accomplish them. He did all he said he would on that first date. He would complete medical school at the top of his class, win intern of the year in his first year of residency, and become a father of a large family. Sam was a few steps away from accomplishing all he had planned till he was faced with the one thing you can never plan for. His wife got cancer. Talk about a distraction.

I hope you are never faced with the reality of the vows “in sickness and in health”. If you are, I pray you are married to a spouse like Sam.

I sit here now, trying to find the words to explain to you the love and support I have received from my husband through this nightmare of a journey. My husband is my best friend. Yes, everyone says that but I genuinely mean that with my whole heart. We were friends before we became partners and that’s how we are in marriage. We have been together since we were 19 and 21 years old. I am so madly in love with my husband that it’s embarrassing.

The night after my first chemo, Sam looked at me and said “this would be a lot easier if I didn’t like you. Why did this happen to me? a guy who really loves his wife”. It’s so hard to think about that. Why us? Why a couple who has fought so hard? Why a couple who has so much to lose? There is no answer to those questions though. I just know that I married one of the most amazing humans that ever was. Someone who held me as I took in all this new information. Someone who laid on the bathroom floor with me when my first round of chemo symptoms hit. Someone who shaved my head for me when my hair started to fall out and told me I was beautiful. His life plan never included a sick wife while finishing residency with three small kids but he looked at me and said “I got this”.

Our story has changed but in a weird way for the better. In a single doctor’s appointment, our long life plans changed from years to tackling day by day. I pray that you have or will one day have a partner like Sam. I also pray you don’t ever have earth shattering news that puts how much they mean to you into perspective. Live life like a 28 year old bald mother of three with breast cancer who has nothing to lose. Eat the ice cream. Make the mess. Love your people unconditionally.

We are fighting each day for each other and I plan to be a distraction to this man for the rest of our LONG, HEALTHY lives together.