The World Keeps Turning

Major, heartbreaking events can make it feel like a person’s world has stopped.  It feels like everyone around you is moving on, and life continues, but you are stuck, even if briefly in that moment of misery.  Illness, loss of a loved one, divorce, and more can cripple you. Around you the world keeps turning.

I love both of my boys. They are my life, my heart, and my everything.  If I hadn’t married their father I wouldn’t have them, but I remember when I was going through my divorce in 2012 with my first husband.  I was young, and as I grew I expected him to also grow.  I can’t tell you how many messages, calls, and nights spent with my friend Dez I had during that dark time.  I was often a mess at work.  I worked with his dad and spent a lot of my lunches hiding, crying in my car.  I had a few friends at work who tried to help me through, too; Heather and Tyler.  In time, Tyler turned into more than a friend, but before that point there were multiple times he would walk over while he was having a smoke after lunch to catch me crying and try to cheer me up.  He was always trying to tell me to not worry. It would all work out with my husband because we had kids.  

During that time I tried everything I could think of to save our marriage; overwhelming him with love, boudoir photos for our anniversary that year (which I asked for during the divorce and never got back), screaming and yelling, I asked for marriage counselling (which I ended up getting my own during and after the divorce), and honestly nothing worked. A few moments during the thick of the “bad” stick out; asking him to stop spending money because we needed to pay our bills and him ignoring me, when I found out I was pregnant and his response was “Do we have to pretend to get along now”, when I miscarried that same pregnancy and got postpartum depression (partially hormonal, partially the state of our marriage – it was shortly after this I sought therapy) and he couldn’t figure out why I was so upset because as he worded it “it wasn’t even a real baby”, when I asked him to go to marriage counselling with me and he said “I won’t talk to you, what makes you think I’ll talk to a stranger”, or the worst was the shrug and “whatever” when I asked him if he wanted to get a divorce. Even now co-parenting with him is much the same; he doesn’t communicate well and can be very unkind.  I am not saying I am not at fault whatsoever; I had a fiery temper which I learned to control while going to therapy, but on occasion it still rears it's ugly head.

I told my ex as soon as I started seeing Tyler.  It was no secret.  We had decided to get a divorce, and Tyler was a distraction from the ugliness my life had become.  He was the rebound guy.  I kept him away from the kids for the first six months we were together because I figured he would be a passing phase to get me through the divorce, and I didn’t need the kids meeting someone that wouldn’t be in their life long term.  I tried to be transparent through it, but all these years later he decided to believe I was unfaithful. The world keeps turning.

Recently my ex let a bill with my name still attached to it go 6 months without paying it.  It started to adversely affect my credit score, so I paid the bill up to date for him.  I didn't want to deal with it while also dealing with cancer, but I kept getting debt collector calls for him for the bill.  I already have a running spread sheet of his half of the boys out of pocket expenses I haven’t been paid back for, so I contacted my lawyer. I had filed contempt back in 2015 for the same bill and other things previously.  I asked her to help me get my money back and my name off of this bill, as well as adjust child support to a more up-to-date amount since I started making more since our divorce finalization in 2013.  He’s started to communicate even less with me once he received the notice from my lawyer (which I didn’t know was possible) and bad mouth me (or oddly enough my daughter) on social media groups.  I have tried all these years since we separated to keep the peace for the boys. I shelter them from anything negative going on between us.  Trying keep the peace does not mean, however, that I will be taken advantage of. The world keeps turning.

In November 2014 my grandfather passed away from Alzheimer's.  He was the most significant male role model in my life, and even though it was expected, the blow still hurt more than I can express.  He and I were very close.  He built me up when I was a teenager and was always there when I needed him.  I prided myself in being able to smart mouth him when he was giving attitude, and our relationship was one that will never be replaced in my life.  I had no idea what to do in a world without him, but the world keeps turning.


After Tyler and I purchased our house in 2016, we decided to try for a baby.  I was pregnant fairly quickly, but when I was about 7 weeks pregnant I started to bleed.  (Cue flashbacks to my miscarriage.)  I went to the ER, and the baby was okay.  I had something called a subchorionic hemorrhage.  The baby was at risk until about 20 weeks of pregnancy, my doctor said it was a 50/50 chance I could lose the baby, and I was told to take it easy until week 20. I was mentally and emotionally wrecked. I bled consistently from that day until I was 14 weeks pregnant. Tyler kept the faith, and kept telling me everything would be fine. It was hard for me to be excited at any point during my pregnancy. I felt some excitement when we found out the baby was a girl, I documented my belly growth in pictures, and I kept my anguish for the most part off social media. I was nervous until I was about 35 weeks pregnant (a week after my baby shower.) My daughter was born on her due date, and the world keeps turning.

When my daughter was 5 weeks old (June 2017) my mother had a major heart attack and was hours away from dying according to her cardiologist.  I kept my cool most of that day, because she was alive. She hadn't died.  The seriousness of it all hit me later that night.  My father and his wife had left us some gifts for the kids on our back porch that day while I was at the hospital, and Tyler sent them a quick "Thank you" text to let them know we received it. I was scolded later by his wife because our thank you wasn't detailed enough, and she expected to know exactly what the kids thought of the gifts.  I explained the day had been hectic, but that everyone enjoyed the gifts.  A few months later my father and his wife cut ties with us over another text misunderstanding.  My mother is still alive, and she is doing well. The world keeps turning.

Then on November 1^st, 2018 I found out I had an aggressive form of breast cancer and was in for, literally, the fight of my life.  The world, well, it keeps turning.

Cancer, Chemo, & Kids!

There is nothing more terrifying than having three small children (10, 8, & 2) and being diagnosed with a life threatening disease.  As if a cancer diagnosis isn't enough to be threatening your life, having to undergo chemotherapy with school age and under children is absolutely nerve racking, too.  You are hit with this reality that you are about to be immune-compromised along with battling cancer.

My first thought after being diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer was "I DON'T WANT TO DIE".  After finding out I had a long chemo road ahead of me, again my thoughts fell to "Oh no, what if I get sick and end up in the hospital with some kind of complication like pneumonia because I'll have no immune system!"  Working full time through treatment was also scary, but nothing is scarier than germ factories... I mean children.  Schools and daycare are festering pools of yuck.  Tell me I'm wrong!

It's hard to take a deep breath when every cell in your body is screaming to survive, but surviving isn't easy anymore.  Luckily throughout chemo I managed to keep myself relatively healthy with a few hiccups.  We had help, to be honest.  The boys father, my ex-husband, either took the boys if we knew an illness was imminent, or kept them in some cases when they came down with something while he had them at his house.  This was one of the most helpful things while going through chemo.  It wasn't a catch all, but boy did it do wonders.  My in-laws took Evelyn if she was sick, and sometimes just to be nice so I could rest. All of this help ensured not only the kids were safe, but so was I.

The first time I caught something the kids brought home was the week before Christmas.  All three kids; Desmond, Shamus, and Evelyn, came down with a cold.  This could wasn't horrible, but enough that I had to skip chemo the week I came down with it.  All of us had low grade fevers, nasal congestion, and a slight cough.  Luckily we were all better within a week, but I can tell you the entirety of that week I paid extra close attention to my body. 

The second time the house was overrun with illness was the stomach bug in mid-January.  There wasn't anything that could be done.  The boys came home after school on a Thursday.  Hugs and snuggles were shared Thursday before bed, normal night.  Unfortunately Shamus began throwing up a few hours after he went to bed.  You might be asking "Why not send him to his dad's house?" Well, let me explain... my stomach had begun hurting shortly after waking up with Shay.  While I was helping him in the bathroom, bleaching, cleaning, all the while with a mask on to protect myself, it was already too late.  All the snuggles the night before must have done me in.  I never threw up to the extent Shamus did, but boy was I sick.  My husband Tyler got the bug, too.  Desmond and Evelyn lucked out and didn't get sick.  This illness lasted about 3 or 4 days for all of us.  Again, I tried to stay in-tune with my body and watch for signs of more serious complications.  Once I shook the stomach cramps, though, we were all good.

The last time I got sick during treatment, believe it or not, was the worst.  At the beginning of March Desmond came home with a cold.  It didn't seem bad at the time, and he'd had it for over a week so I figured it was lingering because the weather had warmed up and he also suffered from allergies.  That was not the case.  Evelyn caught the cold shortly after, as did Shamus.  The boys are fairly good at washing hands, but there is nothing you can do about a 23 month old with a running nose.  She was a mess.  I was on every other week chemo's at this point, and the day before receiving chemo I felt like I might be coming down with the cold, but it didn't seem too bad.  Two days after getting chemo, however, I was sicker than a dog.  Bad sinus and chest congestion, low grade fever and body aches.  The rest of the house got over the cold within 2 weeks, but mine just would not quit. I had a lingering, painful cough going on 3 weeks when I finally called my oncologist. Like I mentioned above, I was trying to pay attention to signs my body was giving me, and my body was angry and would not give me a break.  My oncologist wrote me out a prescription for a Z-pack in the hopes we could avoid me getting pneumonia.  Within the first two days of the antibiotics my cough no longer hurt, and a few days after completing the prescription I finally felt better.  It took me a good week longer than the rest of the family, and the help of a prescription to get over the illness, but I didn't end up in the hospital.  I am thankful for that.

The kids were sick here and there between and after these times, but I was able to avoid catching it.  One of those times included my last round of chemo that you can read about in my previous blog entry.  We also just got over a bought of another stomach bug that flew through the house the first week of April.  I got hit with this one, but with chemo being done I didn't feel as afraid.  Not to mention, while Shamus was laid up for 4 days, I felt better after 2, which I took as a good sign that my immune system was back up and running.


My very favorite thing about my life is my children. I love being a mom, but hot damn germs are scary!