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Monday May 12,2008

7 Hours

by Miriam

March 10, 2003 started as any other day. I gave Stephen a kiss before I went to work and chided him about calling the doctor. He had slept on the couch again because his arm was causing so much pain. The doctor was treating him for high blood pressure and anemia.

Stephen was a large man who had never really had any physical problems before the arm started to bother him. When I got home from work, Stephen told me he wanted to go the Emergency Room. This was so unusual, I became very alarmed. He told me he had lost the use of his right leg for a short time that afternoon.

Seven hours after we arrived at the Emergency Room, and the doctors had run a series of tests, they gave Stephen a shot for pain and he fell asleep. That's when my world was rocked to its foundation. The doctor told me it was not a heart attack or stroke, it was cancer and it was advanced. The tests showed cancer in Stephen's liver and bones.

They admitted Stephen into the hospital for more testing and to determine a course of treatment. Two days after he was admitted the doctors told me it was inoperable cancer, which had started in the stomach and had gone into the liver and bones. Stephen was given between 6 months and 2 years to live. I was told not to tell Stephen how bad it was because the doctors did not want him to give up hope.

We tried radiation therapy for his arm and he had one chemo treatment. The chemo treatment shut down Stephen's kidneys. He died three weeks after the initial diagnosis. During his illness, Stephen was only home for four days(thankfully one of those was our thirteenth wedding anniversary) because we could not keep the pain from his bone cancer under control.

In the span of 7 hours my world was destroyed. I lost my husband, best friend, confidante, mentor, soul mate, life mate, my everything.

There's a song who's lyrics I'll paraphrase: even if I had known how it would end, I would'nt have missed the dance. There is not one day of our life together I would trade, not one moment I would give up, even if I had known how it would end. So now I'm trying to build a new life, trying to keep from being bitter. I miss Stephen every day and I always will. He was a bright and shining star in the lives of so many people. I'm so grateful he was in my life even though our time together was all too brief.

I'm a 50 year old widow trying to survive the loss of the love of my life, my soulmate, lifemate, my husband.