I don’t even know where to start with this. Typically when I open up wordpress I am getting ready to reflect on some amazing day we just had on a cruise ship, in some amazing part of the world. But today is very different.

(Fair warning, I’m sorry if this post rambles or goes into left field. That’s where my brain is right now. A piece looking at the future, a piece looking at the here and now and a piece remembering all the things we have been through in the past)

It’s 2:30 in the morning and I am sitting here watching Sean’s heartbeat monitor beat a steady 75. He is sleeping so peacefully and I just can’t help but smile. I look at this beautiful person laying in this hospital bed and know without a shadow of doubt that this man is my soul mate. He is my reason for getting up in the morning. He is my purpose in life. He is my everything.

Today our lives were turned upside down. Today at 6:06pm on February 25th, Sean was diagnosed with super aggressive pancreatic cancer. I can’t say what stage he is because we haven’t had an official diagnosis from an oncologist. Yikes. I never thought in a million years I would ever be thinking about talking to an oncologist. And by the way, I’m really angry at the hospital doctor for dropping this news on us right before everyone went home for the evening. Making someone wait and worry overnight is just plain cruel. So cruel. We will find out tomorrow what the prognosis is and what options we have to battle this.

So the news came, the doctors did their thing and then it was just us. You want to know the one thing that Sean said that absolutely broke me, he said “please don’t hate me”. Oh man, that was it. Bring on the tears. I guess there is always this feeling of did I do something wrong? Did I cause this? But the truth is, there were no warning signs. All of Sean’s blood tests came back in perfect range, he has the blood pressure of an athlete (thanks Concept 2 rower), and yet here we are, staring down the barrel of a loaded gun with the trigger ready to go at any moment.

Tonight was one of the hardest nights of my life. I want to be this super strong woman who is there for her husband but yet the tears keep flowing and Sean is there comforting me. What is wrong with me? Get it together Stef. But the thought of being in this world without Sean rips my heart right out of my chest and the tears just keep flowing. My brain is literally yelling at me to pull myself together and be strong but my heart takes one look at Sean and I just melt into a puddle.

Writing this all down is like my Dumbledore pensieve. A way to take these thoughts out of my head and put them here to look at later, or maybe never again. But still writing all this down has stopped the tears for the moment so that’s a plus in my book.

It’s now 3am and I finally feel tired and ready to catch a few z’s before the next round of doctors come in. Sean and I have decided to take each day as it comes. One 24 hour period is all we are going to focus on at the moment. Within that 24 hours I want to set one goal for myself. I will write that goal here and maybe I will achieve it and maybe I won’t, but it’s all I have right now.

My goal for tomorrow: (although I want to stop the tears, I’m not sure if that’s a doable goal). For tomorrow, I will be present in the moment (no thoughts of death, no thoughts of being alone). I will take as many notes from the oncologist that I can so Sean and I can plan the next course of action. Right now knowledge is power. We will learn and then we will fight 💪

This is not over yet….