July 16th, 2011 marked the happiest day of my life. Marrying Cari was by far the one thing on my bucket list that I had been looking forward to more than anything. Her and I worked so hard planning the big day. We put in so much time to make that day go off as perfect as it could possibly be. I think we did a pretty decent job too! Anyway, the day was absolutely incredible. When I arrived at the church, I was immediately escorted into the youth room in the basement so that there would be no way that I could possibly get a glimpse of the bride. I wanted to be 100% surprised when she walked down the aisle, As the time drew nearer and nearer, I began to grow more and more anxious. I wasn’t nervous at all. My body was filled to the brim with love, joy, and excitement..
The time had come and the groomsmen and myself walked upstairs to the back of the church. One by one we all started walking down the aisle. I escorted my mother and my father. Following behind me was Cari’s mom escorted by Larry Hisle. After that, the rest of the groomsmen and bridesmaids made their way to the front of the church for the processional. All of a sudden the pianist changed over from “Pachebel’s Canon in D” to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and I knew it was time. The doors swung open and the most beautiful women in the world was looking me in the face. As her dad started walking her down the aisle, I broke down inside. The tears were welling up and starting to drip down my face. I couldn’t hold it in. I tried so hard but the emotion inside had burst through. Cari looked absolutely gorgeous. I was the happiest man alive.
The ceremony finished up and the wedding party headed out for photos. After taking pictures, we all headed over to the reception where the day would be capped off with an incredible party that we shared with 250 of our closest family and friends. The celebration was fantastic and everyone had a terrific time.
The following day we had gift opening at my parents’ house. Soon after that Cari and myself went down to Milwaukee to finish packing for our honeymoon. We were flying out at 6:30am the next day so we needed to get ready to go.
Jamaica was the honeymoon destination. We stayed at Sandals Royal Carribbean in Montego Bay for one week. The week was filled with relaxation and fun. There wasn’t a single thing I would have changed about any of it. I wish I could rewind the clock back one week and do it all over again. Some of the activities included: snorkeling, boating, swimming, beach bumming, swimming with dolphins, going to waterfalls and climbing up them, dancing (Jamaican style), etc…
Once again, we had an absolutely fabulous time….however there was one thing that was on the back of our minds while we were there. Throughout the week, I was noticing a few bruises on my body that I could not remember how I got. I typically never get bruises; so when I do, it raises a flag or two. So to put my mind at ease, I went to Froedtert Hospital as soon as I could when I got back to Wisconsin to get some simple bloodwork done,
Yesterday I went to Froedtert before work to do just that. I had my blood drawn and then went over to the orthopedic surgeon to take a look at my hip and leg which had both been giving me quite a bit of pain. As I sat there in the surgeon’s office, I asked him if he could pull up my blood results from my labs which were taken earlier that day. Within seconds I had known I had relapsed and that my cancer had come back. My platelet count was low and my white blood cell count was high. The surgeon called up my oncologist and my oncologist told him to tell me that he wanted to see me right away. I scurried off over to the cancer clinic to get a confirmation/official diagnosis from my oncologist. As he walked into the room, he said, “It’s back.”
I broke down pretty hard as I sat there. The best day of my life and the worst day of life both occurred within about a week of eachother. It’s time for me to once more fight for my life. Roughly 50% of my cells are already cancerous so we need to act fast. I will be starting chemotherapy today sometime. Providing that they will be able to get me back into remission, we will then need to pursue someone else. And by something else I mean something very high risk with high reward. Please contact me if you have any questions or whatever via the email or the guestbook on this site.
Time for me to check off of this for now….my head is pounding and I can’t seem to emotionally get control of myself yet.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers.
Love,
Eric
