when my life changed

Funny thing about life….it never works out the way you think it should. There are moments of total clarity when you realize this and no matter the situation there is fear. Sometimes a fear so great that it causes panic that may last a moment or, as in my case, two full days of all consuming anguish.

My life as I knew it at age 32 came to a complete halt on September 29, 2008 when they discovered tumors on my 32-year old husband’s liver. Three days later it was confirmed that these stemmed from a primary cancerous tumor growing in his colon. He was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer with mestasized tumors on his liver, sporadically in his abdomen, and to one lung. I flipped. I’m serious…..I totally freaked out…..and let me say it was not a pretty sight.

“What do you mean flipped? Did you cry, scream, vomit? What?” My response to people when they have enough guts to ask me about it is, “all the above”. Two full days of alternating between these….boy, was I a mess! My thoughts raced constantly from snippets of good and bad memories to the what-if’s that the word “cancer” does to anyone. And sleep? Ha, that was not a luxury I could partake of.

Let me give you a brief rundown of our life. I met my future husband, Jeremy Smith, back in 1995 after having moved home to Missouri from a one-year stint as a nanny in a suburb of Boston. We were introduced by mutual friends and hit it off right away. He was a lead singer in a country/southern rock band, and no, I was not a groupie but I did become his biggest fan and later his wife on June 7, 1997.

My name is Cheri Maulsby-Smith. For those people that don’t know me, I am not a patient person and when I set my mind on something I get what I want. So, when I decided that I wanted children we didn’t wait. On March 27, 1998 I gave birth to beautiful 3-week premature baby girls. No, that was not a misprint I used the plural form of girls. Twins….which was a shock to my husband considering he was a twin, also.

Life is never easy for a young couple starting out but, throw in two babies, a band, long hours of work? I’m surprised we made it! Don’t get me wrong we fought, separated, said a lot of bad things, but never gave up. We even had another child on December 2, 2002. Cute little guy with dark red hair and big blue eyes, just like his father’s. Thinking our life was going in a good direction we purchased a bigger home in January of 2008 when Jeremy took on a career change working on locomotives for a local railroad. He had found his dream job, well, second only to his music.

It was when Jeremy would come home exhausted complaining of feeling as if he had the flu that I began the nagging. But, would he willingly go the doctor? No. Mind you, he was working long hours on his feet, being on-call, and doing a lot of heavy lifting so we didn’t get too concerned. Just after his 6-month probation I had a gall bladder attack that sent me to the emergency room, confirming later I had gallstones. Thinking maybe that this might be his problem I made an appointment for him to have an ultrasound. That brings us back to that fateful day in September that changed our life forever.