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Having a spouse with cancer.

Shortly after my second son was born, my husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He starting having pains in his groin area and one of his testicles was swollen. At first, the doctor thought it might be an infection and put him on antibiotics. Within several days, when the antibiotics weren't helping, he was scheduled for an ultrasound in the morning. I guess we should have known that things were bad when we got a call back from the doctor's office that day asking my husband to stop by the office after work and bring me along, but at that time, we had know idea what was in store.

Shortly after 5 PM, we stopped at the doctor's office, announced ourselves at the reception desk and assumed we would sit and wait our turn as is normal. But - the receptionist immediately came around to the front and escorted us back into a room. Because we had no one to watch our kids, we had to bring them along - a four year old boy and an 8 month old boy. I remember sitting on the floor trying to keep the kids occupied with toys and feeling scared and anxious.

The doctor came into the room pretty quickly and lucky for us - he did not beat around the bush. He was calm, very down-to-earth about the diagnoses and extremely patient answering questions. I remember doing everything I could to keep from crying and glanced up at my husband, who just sat there with a shocked look on his face. My husband was 30 years old and was in no way ready to deal with a cancer diagnoses.

As he went through treatment, my wonderful mother-in-law actually came and moved into our tiny 900 square foot apartment to help take care of her son and the day to day household duties. The people in our church brought by food and offered assistance. My 8 month old's babysitter watched the kids overnight when we had to travel 5 hours to a cancer center and did so without charging us anything extra. The doctors worked with us and helped us find treatment close to home. The nurses were awesome! They really formed a bond with us since we were at the hospital so much and would share of themselves. But - most of all, my courageous husband never gave up.

During the next year and a half, he endured 3 surgeries and 4 rounds of chemotherapy. Two surgeries were outpatient, but one was in-patient, with the surgery lasting 12 hours. Because his cancer had spread unusually fast, the chemotherapy that was chosen was extremely strong and dangerous and injected through a port directly into his heart.

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