Telling My Girls.......

This was a day I was NOT looking forward to. I mean, think about it......... how do you tell your kids you have Cancer? I thought about it in so many ways but when you get right down to it, there really is only one way. It was the dreaded time now, because I had all the facts about Multiple Myeloma and I just needed to get this part over with. I asked my Mom to come over here too when I told the girls. I needed my "mommy" for support as I know my Mom is my Rock, just as I am their Rock. I HATE this Disease........Hate that it is making me hurt my family. It makes me soooooooo angry. You can mess with me, but don't mess with my kids! You got a fight with Mama Bear on your hands. I had asked Lindsay to come home for the weekend because she is away in Gainesville going to the University of Florida, GO GATORS! Ashley lives at home with me. So it was February 10, 2007 when I told the girls......a date etched into my brain, and probably etched into theirs too :( To back up just for a second, Mom and I had gone to Kohl's a few days earlier because I wanted to give them a gift when I told them. Something to share between them and me. I found these beautiful sterling silver necklaces that had two hearts intertwined, one of them a shiny heart and the other had diamonds around the heart. I bought each girls one. So Linz came home and I asked them to come into my room and I just straight up told them that I had undergone some testing and procedures because of all of the pain I had been having and that the doctors told me that I have a rare form of cancer, I explained what the cancer was called and why, I told them what the cancer does, and that even though it doesn't have a cure, they are hoping to make it a "manageable" cancer someday. This was when the tears started to fall. We then had a group hug and then individual hugs..........ahhhhhhhhhhhh....the fear and the love and the strength I felt in those hugs is indescribable!! I told them (which they already knew....LOL), that I'm a fighter, that I was not going to give up, that I was hopeful, and I didn't plan on going anywhere. I gave them the necklaces to represent our love for each other and that our hearts will always be together. They had questions which I answered and then we all pretty much quieted down after an hour or so, left with just the chaos that a Cancer diagnosis brings.