My life flashed before my eyes today.

Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would
give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily
life too often as if we take our family for granted. ~Paul Pearshall

Joel went to the doctor this morning around 9am and by 10am he was calling me to let me know that he was on his way to the hospital because the doctor thought he had a blood clot in his leg. Joel as passive as he can be sometimes tried to play quiet to the extent of what this could mean and promised me that it was nothing. I on the other hand who had blood clots during my pregnancy with Morgan do understand the extent of what could happen if the clot were to dislodge itself and navigate to another point in his body. It is something that I tried so hard to not think about but all I could see was a life before me without my husband and being a single mom to two young boys.

This is the first time I have even thought such things about the possibility of growing old without my husband next to me. It scared me into a mad whirlwind of paranoia.

By noon Joel called me back and said that they let him go after doing an ultrasound on both legs at the hosptal. THey told him to then immediately schedule another appointment with his doctor first thing in the morning. They fortunately, did not find clots as the two doctors previously thought that he had. I am so thankfully they were wrong on that target. BUT there is still a problem and we will have to wait until we found out what is going on.

At the same time we found news of Joel's Aunt (has not seen them since he was 3ish) was diagnosed with an aggressive metastic cancer. Initially they thought that she was just having stomach problems but two months and 28lbs of weight loss later she was sent to the hosptial in a 'bus' and they found a large mass in her uterus. I had a gut wrenching feeling from my background in ovarian cancer research that she had a tumor or cancer somewhere in her reproductive system. I was sorry to admit that I was dead on with my hypothesis. The cancer has spread to her lungs and lymphnodes. This is yet another heart wrenching story of two people in love that are facing the possibility of losing each other due to this vicious growth. So please, keep them in your thoughts and prayers.