I’m sure no one ever wants to have the moral high ground regarding chemotherapy. 

I was quoted in the newspapers today from my blog post about what it has been like to watch my innocent husband suffer. I wrote that it has been what I would imagine it would be like to watch him endure chemotherapy. This upset people who have had experience with chemotherapy and I want to say this first and foremost:

If this triggered any pain in you, I am so very sorry. The wounds that come with this experience is never dormant and if these words inflamed, I sincerely apologize.  

I too have watched a loved one endure literal chemotherapy and cancer. I don’t want to compete with people over who has the best vantage point about this. No one wins that competition.

But this is what I do know about chemotherapy: You fear for your loved ones’ life. You pray with every fiber of your being. You watch the body break down, lose weight, and behave in ways that a healthy body should not. You watch them try to be brave when they don’t feel brave. I have seen this in my relatives and I have seen this in my husband and if the feelings in me are similar, that is for me to declare and my own website should be a safe place to do so. I am simply reaching for a way to describe my own pain. I am in no way trying to minimize others.

My husband is innocent of fraud and wrongdoing. Yet he has had his life physically threatened with gun violence. He has been seen by doctors for heart palpitations and panic attacks. He has suffered chronic inflammation that led to broken bones and weight loss and other painful physical ailments that I will omit to preserve whatever privacy he’s got intact.

I have held his hand, terrified of what will be left of him when this is over. I have sat next to him, watching someone good be attacked by something bad. So am I not free to say that this experience has much in common with chemotherapy when I have first-hand knowledge of both? It was not said to put myself in the same basket as other victims. It was to use the only analogy I could reach for in my 40 years of experience on earth. 

If you have had first-hand experience with chemotherapy, I hope that we can never compare notes and I hope that you understand my words. And if you simply cannot, I hope you can forgive me for any pain that was brought to the surface by these words that were written in an attempt to heal myself and not open wounds in others.