The Resilient Widow

CANCER FREE. Two words that I have waited years to hear. After all of the radiation, chemotherapy, and surgeries, I couldn't wait to be cancer free. Well, here I sit, cancer free, and I am unbelievably miserable. This is not what I expected. It is worse. My surgeon warned me that my recovery wouldn't be easy. He mentioned to expect 6-8 weeks for recovery, but I just brushed that off. Perhaps I should have taken him a bit more seriously. I was so focused on surviving the surgery, that I figured any recovery would be a cake walk after all that I had been through. I could not have been more wrong about anything in my life. I felt better when I had cancer. I could eat when I had cancer. I could socialize when I had cancer. I could travel when I had cancer. I was a fully functioning human being when I had cancer. And now, I am a shell. A shell of what I once was. But I am moving too fast. First things first, the surgery. The morning of the surgery was terrifying, but not as

                It is strange to think that when I woke up in the morning on October 5, 2010, that Dan was already dead. When I was in the shower, dead. Doing my hair, dead. Driving to work, singing along with the radio, dead. My world had completely crumbled from underneath me, and I was clueless. My Husband’s wonderful and loving heart had stopped beating, and I was checking work emails. The thought sickens me.                 I was in an event planning meeting around 10:15am, when my co-worker knocked on the door. She entered the conference room; her face as white as a ghost. When the words came out of her mouth, I knew. “Kristen, you need to step out. Your parents are here.” I even looked at my co-workers and said, “Well, that can’t be good.” I walked into my office to find my parents there. My Dad looked straight at me, and told me to get my stuff together and that we needed to go home. I asked why, and the following words shook me to my very core: “Dan died.” Just like that.