When Stephanie was diagnosed with cancer, I was devastated. We were living the American dream. I owned my own business, had traveled the world, had 3 good looking kids (of course I'm biased) and a beautiful home in the suburbs. When the doctor said, "we think this is cancer," we were so unprepared for those words that all Stephanie could say is, "this could be bad."
As I dove into researching her cancer, the treatments, and the possible outcomes, I was overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness. What made it even worse was that there was nothing to deal with what I was feeling. Our kids were 8, 6, and 4 years old, so we struggled with what to tell them, what not to tell them, and what did they already know. Also, being self employed, I wondered how my business would survive and therefore how would we be able to financially survive this crisis. And, honestly, as I began to learn about Stephanie's prognosis, I began to wonder about a possible future without her. There were no resources to deal with those things.
About two months after her diagnosis, I stumbled across a Yahoo group called Young Cancer Spouses. As I looked at some postings, I realized that these people were just like me: thrust into a position they never expected and forced to deal with things they shouldn't have too. Just knowing that someone who could understand was listening lifted a huge burden off of me. While our friends and family were giving us their platitudes, here was a group of people who could totally empathize.
When the idea came about of bringing this site to more people, I was thrilled. The men and women in the group have become friends, even though I'll never meet many of them. Today, I am thankful to Karen for having the vision to reach out to this underserved group of people.