Goodbye Houston, Hello Denver

We flew back to Denver on January 22nd so we could begin treatment immediately. Houston gave us clarity and urgency. It confirmed what we already knew deep down….time isn’t our friend right now. So we came home to fight.

Cassidy’s new, indefinite chemotherapy began on Monday, January 26th. That same day, he started the first of ten full-brain radiation treatments.

You know what else is on January 26th?? Our anniversary.

There was something unbearably heavy about spending our anniversary in infusion rooms and radiation oncology instead of across a dinner table. Instead of cards and quiet celebration, it was consent forms and IV lines and carefully fitted radiation masks. But in a way, that was how we celebrated our love. Because relationships aren’t just the easy days or the anniversary trips. It’s sitting beside each other when everything feels uncertain and saying, “We keep going.” We didn’t toast with champagne. We started chemo. And somehow, that felt sacred.

He tolerated the first round of chemo well. The first week of radiation felt manageable. We kept asking ourselves what was causing what — is this chemo? radiation? the leptomeningeal disease? There’s no clean line separating any of it. It’s just his body doing its best under an unimaginable load.

The second week of radiation was different….harder. The fatigue deepened, the confusion increased. Physically, he began declining in ways that shook me. By the second week, he couldn’t walk anymore, not even with his walker, not even with me holding him up. By the end of that week, he could barely stay awake or stand at all.

Caring for him became something entirely different. Helping him dress, changing his diaper, lifting him, supporting his full weight, adjusting him in bed, managing medications, monitoring every small shift. Loving someone through this is not just emotional…it’s physical labor. My back hurts in ways I didn’t know were possible. My arms ache. My body feels like it’s running on fumes.

No one prepares you for that part. There is grief in watching someone you love lose independence piece by piece. There is exhaustion in being the steady one when everything feels unsteady.

So many people have said, “Let us know what we can do to help.” And I need you to know that means more than you realize.

But it isn’t that simple.

The help I need is rarely something I can plan in advance. It shows up in moments when I need someone to sit in the room and watch him breathe so I can shower without fear. When I need help lifting him. When I need someone to be present for something as intimate and vulnerable as changing his diaper. And how do you ask someone for that? How do you text a friend and say, “Can you come over and help me with this?”

Sometimes I don’t ask because I don’t know how. Sometimes I don’t ask because I don’t even know what I need until I’m already overwhelmed. If I haven’t reached out, it’s not because I don’t value the offer. It’s not because I’m trying to do this alone out of pride. It’s because this kind of help is hard to name. Hard to time. Hard to request.

And still, we have not done this alone.

Margaret and Ole have been lifesavers in ways I cannot fully put into words. Checking on the girls. Keeping our neighbors informed. Bringing food. Loving Cassidy without hesitation or fear. Kate and Mo have stepped in over and over again; helping navigate care options, helping me get him to appointments, even arranging for a wheelchair ramp so I could move him safely. That ramp was both a gift and a quiet acknowledgment of how much our world has shifted.

Community is everything. I don’t know how anyone survives this without it.

Last week, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. We admitted Cassidy into an intensive rehabilitation facility. Even writing that still hurts. No one knows him the way I do. No one watches him the way I do. No one loves him the way I do. But I also cannot keep doing this alone. My body is giving out. My strength has limits. And love does not make me invincible.

I wanted him home. In our house. In our bed. Cuddling with our girls. Surrounded by our things. I wanted something that felt normal.

But the hardest realization was this: even when he was physically home, he didn’t always know it. His mind wanders. Sometimes he believes we’re somewhere else entirely. The home I was fighting so hard to preserve was more for me than for him. I had to separate what comforted me emotionally from what was best for him physically.

So on February 11th, we checked him into the facility where he will receive intensive physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. He completed his assessments and began his program. He’s worn out — but in a good way. The kind of exhaustion that comes from trying.

This is not the anniversary season we imagined. It’s not the version of marriage we pictured when we said our vows. But it is ours. We celebrated our love by choosing treatment. By choosing hard decisions. By choosing what gives him the best chance at strength and stability. By saying “yes” to chemo and radiation and rehab when “no” would have been easier emotionally.

This chapter is heavy, humbling, and exhausting. But it is still love, and we’re still here.