My Hero

The past several days have not been good ones.  

Gerry got sick the night before my first chemo - cold shivers, hot sweats - and neither one of us thought to mention it to my oncologist when I went for my treatment last Monday.  So, I had my chemo and ended up picking up his sick, and this past week Gerry have been taking turns trying to out-sick each other with fevers, chills, muscle aches, nausea, etc.  

Well, I am pleased to say.  I won.  

You know.  

Because Cancer.

I ended up in the emergency department on Saturday after having spiked an early morning fever of 102.3.  

Of course, by the time either Gerry or myself were in the coherent position to get me to the hospital, I had managed to take a dose of motrin which brought my fever down.  However, blood tests at the hospital revealed that I am neutropenic so a handshake from a friendly old man or a hug from a snot nosed baby could potentially kill me.  Okay..maybe a tad dramatic, but still nothing you want to mess around with.

So they sent me home with a couple of heavy duty antibiotics and instructions to follow up with my oncologist on Monday for more blood work to see how the counts are by then.  

I haven't felt any better, since, really.

I'm still cycling through episodes of hot sweats, and cold chills.  So the furnace is up and down.  I'm whining for more blankets to be piled on me or to be pulled off.  I'm shooting off requests for hot chicken broth or tea, cold Vernors or popsicles.  

In my wake, I leave a trail of messes from dirty sweat soaked blankets, to dirty dishes, to lids I forgot to put back on food containers, or even food left out in our bacteria breeding kitchen overnight when  it should have been put away in the fridge.  

And aside from a couple of typical comical quips, Gerry has followed behind me making sure I was covered when I was cold.  Making sure my soda was cold when I was hot.  Putting away the things I left out.  Washing the loads and loads of laundry and dishes ALL THE WHILE HE HAS BEEN SICK TOO.

In between his shivering rounds under the piles of blankets, or moments of him stripping off sweaty clothes, his headaches, muscle aches, and achy aches, he has kept up with making sure everything around here didn't totally fall to shit.  Which is exactly what I would have done.  

Let everything fall to shit, that is.

Right now he is out at the grocery store, still feeling like crap himself, to pick up some yogurt and good bread so I can eat something.  Before he left, he bleached down the kitchen, stripped the bed, brought some dirty clothes to the basement, cuddled the cat, and asked if there was anything else I needed before he left.  

I said no, and then suddenly felt this OVERWHELMING wave of LOVE and GRATITUDE for this man who says he wants to spend the rest of his life with me.  

This man who, despite feeling like death himself, has still managed to take care of me when I needed it.  

I tried to tell him how thankful and appreciative I was of all he has done for me, and his response was typical Gerry.

"Shut. It."

But I am so VERY VERY thankful and appreciative that not only the Universe lined up our paths in a way so we would meet, but also because I get to BE LOVED by someone like him.

This shit is real, people!!  Amazing, wonderful, fantastical love is for real.  And I have it :)

So, Thank you Universe for one of the greatest gifts I could ever be gifted, but mostly Thank You Gerry for being the wonderful, caring, loving, gracious, fantastic man that you are.  

I am so very, very lucky.

I love you.