My Amazing Wife
Well, my first post on this new site has to be about my amazing wife. We have been married since 1996 and I have never been away from her for more than a few days at a time. She is my whole life.
Her health had always been fine until one day in 2015 she wasn't. We were at a chess tournament in Skokie Illinois for my oldest daughter Shayna. She was an amazing chess player and we travelled all throughout the country for her chess tournaments.
This weekend started off like every other tournament and we were out at dinner when my wife just stopped talking in the middle of dinner. At first, I was just confused. I thought she was upset with me and just refused to say anything further, but she didn't say anything at all for a few more minutes and we noticed that her face looked oddly frozen. Luckily our server also noticed this and immediately called the ambulance.
Within 10-15 minutes we were on our way to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital and my wife went into surgery immediately. They gave her the stroke buster medicine and then did some more neurological things. Unfortunately it was looking really, really bad.
My two daughters had to stay at the hotel and I was very lucky that some friends looked after them and stayed with them and got them a hotel room and I didn't have to worry about my daughters at all. On a side note, and very saddening. The person who did this for me (Sevan Muradian, a promoter of all things chess in the Chicago area) died just one week later, very suddenly, of a heart attack.
By the time my wife was admitted to her room after all of the surgeries and procedures, she was unable to move, or walk, or talk. The doctors told me that she had a major stroke and it would affect her the rest of her life. We spent the next three weeks at this hospital going through rehab. She had to learn how to walk again, how to talk, how to move around and so much more. The first couple of weeks looked very bleak as I still had to feed her and she would not really move or talk, but I noticed that when her medication started to wear off, she was able to at least try to talk a little better. She was given Kepra for seizures, and this medication was one of the worst experiences of my life. It made her have massive mood swings, completely hate everyone, turn into a maniac, and much more. She had to stay on Kepra for almost a year before I finally convinced a neurologist that it was doing her more harm than good. When she was finally taken off of Kepra she actually became mostly normal again.
When we left rehab, my wife was able to very slowly walk with assistance, and speak very slowly and with a lot of aphasia effects. This lasted for months and was very frustrating for her. After about a year or so, she was almost back to normal, just weak on her right side and that was the main lasting effect from the stroke. This was an amazing recovery. Then in 2017 she had another stroke. This time they changed her medication to Eliquis and this medication was amazing. She never had another recurrence since.
In 2017 she was diagnosed with Stage 2 Colon Cancer. They said it was early enough that she should be fine after surgery. She did the surgery immediately and he was sure that he removed everything. She then did 6 months of "just in case" chemotherapy that was a horrible experience for her. She was deathly sick from the chemo but she finished her 6 month regimen and everything seemed ok. Unfortunately exactly one year after her initial surgery there was a recurrence. So she was now diagnosed with Stage 4 recurrent Colon Cancer and they said the tumor was too big to remove. We decided to move to Las Vegas at this time so that she could be near her sister as the future seemed bleak, medically speaking. While we were in Las Vegas she went through another 6 months of chemotherapy which was even worse for her. In addition, the tumor did not shrink at all, and the surgeons in Las Vegas said it was too big for them to do anything surgically. They suggested we look to specialist places and we decided to go to the Mayo Clinic.
The Mayo Clinic was an absolutely world class experience for us both. We went up initially for them to see her case in person and do the testing needed. The surgeon said that we were lucky we came there and he was very confident that he could remove the tumor and leave her with a great quality of life. The short version is they did an amazing job with the surgery and my wife had an amazing life from that surgery in 2019 until the cancer returned in early 2024. We bought a dog named Truffle after her first surgery in 2018 and my goal was always for her to outlive Truffle. I don't think she is going to make that goal as Truffle is now almost 7 years old but my wife was given two weeks left to live in mid August of 2024.
What is my wife up to now? She is mainly bedridden. I need to help her up every time to use the commode that we have sitting right next to her bed. She eats very little, but she does eat regularly which is nice. Unfortunately she throws up anything she eats, pretty much immediately so she is bone thin now and continuing to lose weight and energy. I am so thankful that my daughters help me with her. My oldest daughter has come to stay with us to help me out and has been such a huge help for both of us during this timeframe. Some days my wife wants to go out and do something, like eat out, or get a haircut, but those days are pretty rare. I am just so happy that she is still with us, but she has been ready to go for a while now. She wants go to heaven and no longer have any pain.
This is the very short version of my amazing wife, the love of my life, and I will never be the same without her. I cannot express my level of sadness and sorrow that I go through every single day, just hoping that today is not the day that she leaves me. I am going to be so lonely, with such a big hole in my heart forever. I can't stop crying, even as I type this post, knowing that she doesn't have much longer with me.