Guest Blog Post - Jeff

Today's guest post is by my amazing husband, Jeff, and what it was like for him when I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. He says he isn't good at expressing his feelings, but his writing brought tears to my eyes. Thank you baby, for being courageous enough to share what things were like from your point of view.

Jennie has been asking me to write a post about my initial feeling after getting the diagnosis she had cervical cancer. As most males, I’m not too keen about sharing my feelings, but after putting it off as long as I could, I think I finally have my thoughts put together on the subject.

Most of you probably know Jennie’s history, but I had been on her about finding the cause of her pelvic pain for some time. I was not prepared at all for finding out it was cancer. Initially I was quite terrified hearing the words cancer, but in trying to be a protector and fixer, I decided I would not be a burden to her by showing her how scared I really was. I thought everyone else around her seemed to be crying and scared, so I needed to be the strong one and get us through this. Obviously looking back on this now that was not what Jennie needed from me. After lots of couple’s therapy, I came to the realization that she thought I didn’t care, but nothing was further from the truth. She was going through enough as it was and I didn’t want to add to her emotional stress.

I had lots of other emotions, like anger and helplessness. I like to fix things, and this was one thing I could not fix, as much as I wanted to. Anger came from the hopeless feelings of why this was happening to her and us.

When Jennie got sick I was terrified of losing her, but decided the best thing for me to do was to be strong and say everything is going to be fine. I was trying to be as positive as possible. The cancer still scares me, but I'm very hopeful everything is taken care of and want to continue to believe that.

After Jennie’s hysterectomy, her doctor said things went very well, and he was feeling pretty good about her long term well being. I was obviously relieved and grateful that things worked out like they did. Every day that passes and there is no recurrence I feel a little better that she has beaten this thing. Personally I’m hugely proud of how she has handled everything.

For all men that think they need to be strong for your partner, my advice is this: Know that she is so much more stronger than you ever imagined. It’s OK to be scared with her; that is not weakness it’s loving support.