Starting Line ("Beginning" Note)

I have been in a year plus long journey as a caregiver to my husband Dave who is going to be 50 this August and was diagnosed last year with Multiple Myeloma, a rare blood cancer. I have kept a detailed Caring Bridge website for the past year since his diagnosis. Caring Bridge is a wonderful private website service for families who have a loved one who is ill. As the year has gone by and I have met many people on the web & in person, dealing with cancer, in general, fellow Myeloma patients, caregivers, sons, daughters, moms and dads and friends, I have found that I wished to be a bit more public about our journey, and mine in particular. Caring Bridge is about Dave and how he is doing for our many friends and family. This will be about me and my growth as a person through this cancer journey as a caregiver, in the hopes that it reaches out to those of you who aren't sure what to do, how to act, deal with your feelings, get a sanity check, find some inspiration, gain some resolve and strength and grow, along with me, as a person.

My journey with Dave is distinctly different in many obvious ways to his journey. I found myself often saying, "Its happening TO HIM, not to me." But I realized that it is happening to me also, but in a different way. We share a lot of the same fears, loneliness, angers, frustrations, and humor (yes you can laugh about cancer, it takes a while, but you get there and when you do, it is incredibly liberating!). There are things however, that are unique to me and unique to Dave that we don't share, though we might "understand", or . . . maybe not. It is this journey, that of the caregiver, that I want to explore.

I participate in a cancer social website and I will tell you that I have grown and learned so much as a caregiver by reading and dialoging with patients. It has helped me immensely in understanding and anticipating what Dave may be going through or getting too. I have come to learn that the patients have learned a lot from me about their caregiver's angst and difficulties. Together I think we are the ying and yang of this whole deal and can help each other to get through it and come out the other side not just in one piece, but better for the experience. Understanding fully, that we might all like to do without the experience all together, we have no choice, and so let's hope we gain something positive from it.

I will start this blog from the beginning and try to capture what was occurring for me at the time and explore some of my feelings and growth during this journey. I'm a year out from his diagnosis therefore, it will be an interesting diary in that it won't be "real time" so to speak. If you can't stand it, knowing how things are, you can always follow Dave's progress in real time on his Caring Bridge site. You can subscribe to it and it will shoot you an email when I log a new journal entry. It does not promote to you or sell your email.

I will be very interested in your thoughts and your comments all along the way. It only makes us better.

Lori