Episode 3- Oct 2022-Jan 2023

Isabelle shares her family's journey through her husband Justin's illness, highlighting their struggles and triumphs. She emphasizes the importance of mental and physical health, drawing from her background as a health coach. Justin's battle with cancer is recounted, from uncertainty to acceptance of his fate. The focus remains on their children, guiding their decisions and providing a beacon of light during challenging times. The narrative portrays a family's resilience and unwavering commitment to creating a better life for their loved ones. Salut mes amis, c'est moi Isabelle. Thank you for being back on my channel from MUD. So if you have been listening so far, thank you so much, first of all. I want to continue with the series I've been working on, which is just telling the story of Justin's illness and how he moved through that, how we all moved through that as a family, what was going on during the time, because even when life gets hard, and I think anybody can, most adults can probably relate to this, and unfortunately a lot of kids can relate to this, although they may not be able to conceptualize it in the same way, but when life gets hard, it still is moving forward. You're still doing all the things you would normally be doing if life was just being nicer to you. So just wanted to share our journey and how we made it through, where we're at now, and I do like to just inject a little bit of health and wellness since I am your resident podcast health coach. I have self-proclaimed myself to be your health coach now, and your pod coach, your pod health coach. That's me. Just a reminder, I have been working in the field of health and wellness for the past 13 years in community and clinical health spaces as a health coach, a health educator. I've done a lot of coaching on nutrition, exercise, weight loss, or other weight management concerns, anything related to blood pressure, diabetes, stress management, anything lifestyle related. I've been working with people one-on-one in groups, as well as creating materials for these things for the past 13 years. I have a bachelor's degree in health science with an emphasis on health promotion, disease prevention, and I have a master certified health education specialist credential, as well as a certified diabetes care and education specialist credential. I'm a certified fitness trainer. And with that being said, I'm going to get going on today's episode. So today, it's episode three of my story. And again, I know that I mentioned in the first episode that I wanted to kind of go in chronological order of like year one, year two of Justin's battle. But I'm just following the flow of how this information comes out and how I'm explaining things. And I talk a lot. So it might take me a while longer to explain things than I originally maybe would have thought. Anyway, I'm not going to keep going down this random tangent rabbit hole, over explaining. Anyway. So today, I want to get going with our third episode. I'm still in Justin's first year of cancer. And I'm going to try to plan these episodes out in some way, so I can kind of stay on track. So I'm going to cover, we're still in Justin's first year, I mentioned the cruise, so I'm going to kind of pick up from there and go through until the birth of our daughter, which she was born on February 13. So we get back from the cruise. He is on Cabo now, and he was still doing the infusions. I actually went back and read through all of our text messages, all of our exchange, our text exchanges through that timeframe, just to try and gain a little more insight and try and recall some of the things we were talking about and just see what what would come up in my memory. So that first year again, so our cruise was in October, he found out in June, our cruise was in October. So I'm kind of talking from there through the holidays and through the birth to the birth of our daughter in February. And I did want to just mention that, like when we first found out that he had cancer, we literally didn't know if he was going to make it through to the holidays, we didn't know if he would make it through to see the birth of his daughter, he was immediately joined these, this Facebook group for his medications, and that was a mixed bag. So there is a lot of positivity and hope in there and support. But there's also a lot of scary stuff that he was looking at a lot of people with his same exact situation who literally only survived a couple months. So the idea of him not making it through to Christmas, or not making it through to see his daughter being born was a very real possibility. And yeah, it was it was a, it was a challenge. And Justin was the type of person who I think I mentioned, he was pretty reserved about sharing things, he kept his cards pretty close to his chest, besides with me. And because of that, he didn't even really want a lot of people to know, I'm sure that I told him, like, I have to tell some people that I'm very close to. But he didn't want to tell a lot of people there's by by the time he actually passed, I had shared his passing, and there were quite a few people who didn't even know he was sick. So he didn't want, he didn't want that to be something people focused on. He didn't want to ever be, you know, like, what's the word like? He never wanted to be fussed over. He just didn't like that type of attention. He didn't want people over worrying about him or just bringing things up to him. He also probably thought it could affect his mental state. If he had people constantly being all like, so sad and not knowing what to say and things like that. So he kept it pretty private. And he wanted me to keep it pretty private the whole time, basically, up until it was so difficult to keep private. And I had to eventually make like a Facebook group for just our family and friends so that I could keep people updated. But that he only allowed me to do that once it was very obvious that he was ill and that I needed that for my own mental health to be able to share and talk about things with the people who were closest to him. So at first, yeah, he and he did at first get a good amount of support and the Mayo Clinic was awesome. They have a whole alternative health area where you can do acupuncture, massage therapy. They have a ton of groups and support groups. They have dietitians, health coaches, all kinds of additional providers that were supporting Justin right off the bat. He tried to do therapy, he couldn't really find the right therapist. He didn't try super hard. But then again, the guy was going through such a crazy thing. Like when he was when we first found out, and we kind of talked about this towards the end, you know, once it became clear to me that he, his death was imminent, it was going to be soon. It came a bit of a shock to me just because I thought we would have one additional Christmas with him. I thought he would make it at least to his birthday, which was November 30. And once I realized like, no, he's, he's probably not going to this is probably leading to the end in a relatively short period of time. Once I kind of realized that it was like, just really accepting and coming to terms with that in a very real way, like, you know, the feeling of like death is imminent. And when I was kind of explaining that to him, he was like, Yeah, I mean, for you guys, it's like you're accepting it now. But when I first found out, that's what I went through. So he was kind of saying, when he first found out, it felt like his death was imminent, and he was immediately accepting it. And that's what the whole, I mean, that first year, or Yeah, the first full year really of his cancer from June 2022, until June 2023, was, there was a lot of physical battle going on as well. But it was a major mental battle, just the negative thoughts, the anxiety, because he's reckoning with his death, he's, in his mind, he's dying soon, he could be dead by Christmas, he could not meet his daughter, he's starting to just go through like, imagine you're told you're going to die, maybe by the end of the year, and all the things that would flood to your brain of like, what do I need to do to prepare? Like, and you have your kids, kid on the way, your toddler, and your wife is pregnant, you're trying to prepare, think in your mind, what can I do to prepare to make things as good as I can for my family? That was his main concern. And then at the same time, yeah, you're just like, Oh, my God, I'm dying, I'm gonna die. He's going through that in his mind, he's accepting it. So by the time, like, by the time he really was gonna die, he was like, I already accepted this. The first year when I found out that was me working through that and accepting my fate. So he was already at peace with everything. By the time his time came. In fact, I would say like, you know, probably by the time Soleil came, I feel like he had worked through all of the really hard thoughts that he was first having when he when he found out. I'm not saying he was like, at peace with it. I think he was just kind of like, I want to go as long as I can, and stay with my kids as long as I can be here for them. And, and me, of course, too. But obviously, the kids were our beacon of light for everyone involved. We all had a focus, me, Justin, his mom, my dad, my sisters, and their mom, and our friends, our neighbors, everyone, our family around us, people who knew what was going on. The focus was always our son and our daughter who was on the way who, at first, we didn't know was a girl. But when, whenever things were getting hard, whenever we would talk about the future, we would always have them in mind. And the answer to every question was always, whatever we need to do to make life better, or good, or as good as possible for the kids. That's our focus. That's what we are looking at. That's what we need to do. And that helped us to just keep pushing forward to kind of put compartmentalize a little bit, because, you know, you're grown up, and you kind of have to do that, you have to just put yourself to the side sometimes, make sure the kids are okay. And then, you know, later, when you're, when you're able to, you take care of yourself. A lot of compartmentalizing, especially for me, and I already had a lot of practice compartmentalizing. So when this happened, that's probably how I was able to cope and take care of everybody as much as I could, because I was compartmentalizing that, plus, like, the positive thinking thing that is just innate, the optimism that's innate to my personality. Those two things can help me get through. That and I have a very strong support system that is a mostly, most people are at a distance. And I have that support system I stay connected to, regardless of where I've moved or lived. So I have emotional support. I also had a great therapist at the time, who I was already seeing through from that previous summer. So I was already with her for a year, when we found out about Justin. So she was with me through my mom passing and other challenges that I had in my life. And then when that happened with Justin, she was with me through until a little after the birth of my daughter. So I had a great therapist, I had great friends and chosen family, and a few of my actual family around as well. And Justin too, but I didn't want to lean on him too much, because I wanted him to be able to lean on me with what he was going through. And yeah, so that's kind of like what our support system looked like at the time. Yeah, so that was kind of like the mental challenges that so, so Justin was having those mental challenges that whole first year. And then I think I might have mentioned, but when we we did go to this one doctor's appointment with Dr. Ho at Mayo Clinic, and he's not there anymore at Mayo Clinic. But there was one time we had met with him and he basically reassured Justin, you will be making it to the birth of your daughter. So don't worry about that. And I will tell you when you have less than six months to live. You will make it through the holidays, you will make it to see your daughter, I will tell you when your time is imminent. So that was such a big burden and a big lift off of Justin's shoulders, just knowing that he's going to make it through the holidays, he's going to see his daughter, that was like one of the biggest concerns he had. In, in those first few months with all the unknowns, that was really helpful. And then I would say like, I know, I mentioned that he did pretty well on the Cabo. And that he didn't have some of the really gross symptoms of not gross, but the really bad stuff. But I was kind of going through the text messages and just my announcements on the Facebook group and the different and my announcements on the Facebook group and the different things that I could find from around that time. And I was kind of reminded that he actually was battling right away. Well, first of all, he was battling that weight loss. Even before the diagnosis, because obviously, the diagnosis didn't really do anything to change that. So he was continuing to lose weight. That was a constant battle. He was a little over 200 pounds, maybe close to 210 at his heaviest, he was about five, nine. And at his lightest, this would have been in October of 2023, when a bunch of bad stuff happened. And he had to go to the hospital. And I, if I'm not mistaken, I believe his weight was about 130 at that time. So he lost a ton of weight. And it was kind of a continuous battle for him. So he was very concerned about the weight and the weight loss. And he started working with a dietician right away at Mayo Clinic. And that was helpful. But it was just such a challenge. If you or anyone you know, has ever struggled with appetite loss, it is such a weird thing. And it's so mysterious. Because you're, there's nothing you can do sometimes to make yourself want to eat. So trying to force yourself to eat when you have no appetite is it makes you sick, it makes you throw up, it makes you, it's just such a repulsion. I remember my mom going through the same thing with her illness. She had severe loss of appetite. And then sometimes it's like if she would force herself to eat, she would throw up. And it's almost like it would train your mind to be scared to eat, because then you're like, I'm going to throw up. So you're averse to eating. It was a whole cycle. Justin was living out that same thing the entire, I mean, more than two years, but the two years during his after his diagnosis, as well as the six months prior to the diagnosis, he was already starting to have that loss of appetite, he was losing weight, regardless of what he was eating. And then once the diagnosis happened, he started losing more weight, because of the depression, not feeling like eating. So it was like a constant battle. We went through so many different weight gain drinks, we tried. We got boosts, we had I think that boost is what we kind of ended on. That's what he ended up doing, like the very high calorie boosts. And I think they were like 500 calories per boost. But we went through Ensure Max, we went through the just the local ones that are Kroger, we bought these Ben, what were the things he used to buy? It was like benefit, the benefit, I forget what they're called, but they're these little discs, like a little plastic ramekin that you open up, and it's like a super potent high calorie mix, and you put it into a drink of some kind. He learned he got that off of the support group he was in for his medications and for his cancer treatment for his cancer type. So he tried those for a while. Then we were trying muscle milks and boosts. And then we found out about the very high calorie boosts that were like 500 calories. So we really focused in and we were fortunate that we could buy those things. There's people who are underweight trying to gain weight, who can't afford those. And it's, you're trying to just do it the old fashioned way and just eat more calories. I've worked with people on who are underweight trying to gain weight in my years as a health coach. It's not a super common goal that I tend to work on, but I have worked with some people on it. And it's very, very challenging, extremely challenging to gain weight when you're underweight, and you're falling behind like how Justin was because of the cancer constantly trying to get fed. And the treatments that we were doing with the immunotherapy not having as strong of an impact that would have been needed to slow that cancer growth down. So it's extremely difficult. We were very fortunate that we could afford those types of high calorie drinks so that he could drinking was a little easier. It was harder to eat stuff and and eat the same number of calories through food, regular food. So those very high calorie boosts were such a major part of his treatment plan. And it was something he was very dedicated to, and that he would always try to eat something to eat a couple of those one to two of those boosts as much as he can. Literally, it would make him sick sometimes. But he, I really admired how hard he tried for that, because watching my mom go through and her not be able to get those things in. Well, first of all, I don't think we really knew about those beverages for her like she we didn't really, well, that's a whole side story. I just wasn't present to watch my mom go through her illness, the way that I was with Justin. So I didn't see her struggling except for when she'd come visit or I would go visit and then he would be like, wow, mom's in really rough shape. But I didn't have the conceptualization I did with Justin, because I was watching him on a daily basis. So I didn't know that mom struggled with her. My mom struggled with her being underweight and having no appetite. Some of the similar things that Justin struggled with as well, like the anemia, there were some similar challenges that kind of intersected with both of their things. But I really just admired that Justin tried super hard to make sure that he was always drinking his boosts. He was always trying to combat that weight loss. And it was a constant, very difficult battle. So yeah, so during this time, the weight loss was a big part of his challenge. The other things, especially after Cabo, there were some other things that got worse. It kind of seems like with each treatment, new treatment, there's like a new level of the of the challenges and the symptoms of weight loss, especially after Cabo. That he was already experiencing, they just kind of worsened. So like, off the bat with the immunotherapy, again, I said, he pretty much handled it pretty well. But, you know, my memory's a little foggy. And at the at that time, he was definitely battling fatigue, he was definitely battling that weight loss, he was definitely battling pain in his liver and kidneys that he could feel all the time, he was definitely battling anxiety and panic. And he also was battling nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, some version of all of those things were kind of always around. And each time he would get a new treatment, it would make it worse. So like when he got on the Cabo, then yeah, he he had all that fatigue, like he pretty much napped every day. He was always a person who enjoyed naps, but he would always kind of take like a power nap, and then he'd be like, I'm fine, I'm great. And once he was with once he had his cancer and the treatments and things, it was a constant battle. He was tired all the time. He was constantly tired, there was no point during those two years where he woke up and felt energized. Well, I can't say there was zero times, but it was probably very minimal. The nausea that was constant, he had to take Zofran, eventually we landed on Zofran, he tried a lot of different things. For that, he used to take these things called queasy drops. And they're like little cough drops, and they're common for people on chemo. So he was that he was battling, like I said, that a lot of gastrointestinal things, because these medications strongly affect those areas. So most people are going to experience those very unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms and battles. And Justin definitely did. So right off the bat, he was fighting those things. Then when we did the Cabo, that got worse. He also, like I said, he had that whitening of the hair, or I don't know if I mentioned this. But like another side effect was the whitening of the hair. And that really did happen. His hair looked he was already like a salt and pepper kind of guy, but he had the white hair. It was going really white during the time he was on Cabo. Yeah, so. So yeah, so Cabo, and then he was on Cabo through, I think he was on Cabo from like that time, October 2022, all the way through, basically, October of 2023. Yeah, so yeah, he was on Cabo, and then he was on Cabo through, I think he was on Cabo from like that time, October 2022, all the way through, basically, October of 2023. Yeah, I want to say, so he was on that for about a year, and it went pretty well. One small kind of weird side effect, which I don't know. But basically, he, one small thing that was kind of funny. So Justin, I have never known a man or another person in general, who would go through such great lengths to take care of his feet. And the man had some very rough heels. So he did a lot to try and manage those heels. And once he started Cabo, it was so weird that like that dry skin went away. It was like he had smooth heels and all the spot his elbows, his knees were always very like, had that rough skin on those areas. I don't know why, but the Cabo stopped that. So one benefit, I guess, of the Cabo is that he no longer had to manage his feet or his calluses or any of that stuff. He's probably like, just, he's probably saying like, Izzy, why are you sharing that? You don't need to tell people that. Well, it's already out there. So sorry, but anyway. But yeah, so he was definitely battling a lot of those daily struggles that if you saw him, you wouldn't necessarily know that he was battling those things. Again, he would keep his cards close to his chest. He didn't want people to fret over him. So he would always present as doing okay. And I think there's something to be said about people who are fighting those invisible illnesses. If anyone's ever heard of the spoons theory, I really like to talk about this with people who are either they live life with some sort of chronic illness that may seem invisible to people. There's certain things, there's certain conditions or just different abilities that people might have that are obvious when you see the person that they may be, you know, like, for example, if someone is in a wheelchair and has an oxygen tank, like my mom was towards the end of her life, you can see that that person is ill. They look ill, they look like, you know, when you see when you would see my mom, you can tell that she's not well. When you looked at Justin in his first year of cancer, he was totally normal. In fact, he looked good because he had lost weight. And he was a little overweight prior to that. So he was looking pretty good. But that was not the type of weight loss you want. And he was undergoing all these mini battles, the fatigue, the nausea, the pain, the constipation, the vomiting, the diarrhea, all those things. The Yeah, just the random bouts of pain, the anxiety, all these things that he was battling on a normal basis, but nobody else, aside from the inner circle, knew he was going through. And I just want to affirm anyone who's listening, if you have an immune, immunocompromised condition, you have another kind of chronic illness, you have depression, you have fibromyalgia, lupus, chronic fatigue, there's so many different things I could mention right now. But if you are one of those people who lives with a chronic illness, or another condition that is chronic, or gets progressively worse, and no one sees your struggle, I just want to affirm you and say that that's messed up. I know a lot of people don't want that attention. But I just want to say that I see you. I know you're out there. I've worked with many people with these conditions. And I've been able to really hear and try to understand and try to visualize and imagine the pain that one experiences and the loneliness that one experiences when you have a condition like that, and you live that condition every single day. And nobody can understand how difficult that is for you. You look normal and healthy. But inside, you feel like you want to give up and it's the end and that you wish it was the end, but you're young and you have all these years and just that loneliness and that dread of having to pick yourself up every single day. And having to do everyday tasks that seem easy for other people. But for you, it takes an enormous amount of strength and energy to be able to do. So I just want to take this opportunity to affirm you and tell you that you are a warrior too. And you are battling these battles. And it's not fair. It's not fair. And yet it's life. And these are the cards that people are dealt sometimes. And I don't know what you tell yourself to get through it. But keep going. I know Justin did. Justin never gave up. He always battled. He battled until there was nothing else he could do. Until he was literally saying gibberish to me on his final day of life. So keep going. Keep pushing. Life is hard. Life is hard sometimes. Life is beautiful sometimes. It's kind of a mixed bag here on earth. But life is definitely hard. And I believe truly in my soul that life is hard for everybody. And nobody gets to live life here on earth unscathed. And nobody gets to have an easy life. Even if it looks like they have an easy life, I really stand by my belief that it's still not an easy life. Okay. So yeah. So basically after the cruise, it was – so that was October. So November would have been like Thanksgiving, Justin's birthday, which we did an NBA game. And like yeah, just again to paint the picture, like this year, this first year of cancer, even though it was this crazy devastating thing, that basically dropped this like – it basically dropped a bomb on our life that was like, for the next whoever knows how long, you will be living in the unknown. We couldn't plan trips. And again, I mentioned like Justin and I love to travel. We always envisioned a lot of adventure and travel and movement with our kids. So to not be able to plan trips because we don't know what he's going to be like in three months, that was such a joy suck. Like it sucked all the – a lot of the joy out of my life. Like as I reflect, it's like not being able to have things to look forward to made those two years so much more challenging and painful. And I really kind of realized during that time what a blessing it is to have things to look forward to, to have trips on the horizon. I took that for granted before that. So I don't know if anyone happens to be in this type of situation or something similar, but if there's any way that you can plan things, if you're the type of person like we are where you enjoy having things on the horizon and that is a source of joy for you and things to look forward to. In general, having things to look forward to, that would have been good for us to make happen. Again, we were just moving through the best we could. This was a fully unknown situation and there were so many unknowns almost the whole time. So we just did the best that we could, but looking back, if I could have somehow made sure that we had things to look forward to, even small things, and being really intentional about that, that might have helped with just kind of morale and joyful factors, but we were actually still quite busy. We never stopped. We found out that he had cancer and life kept moving on. We were both still working. He was doing his infusions and still working. He went on disability, I think that October, October 22, 2022, he went on short-term disability leave, which eventually turned into long-term disability, which again, we're very fortunate that he had an employer that supported that for him. He was in that support group, those cancer support groups that he was in on Facebook, and he would hear so many stories. We could have been so much worse off. There were people in third world countries. I hope that's still the right way. There were people in developing countries that had no access to the level of medicine that we had access to. They had no money. They could have been in the same situation as me, a spouse with a partner in this situation, but they're in the Philippines or something like that, or Lithuania, and they don't have the funds or the access to the care that they really needed. Those were heartbreaking stories. Our story is heartbreaking, but it's something I've learned is it can always be worse. It can always be harder, and it is harder for somebody out there, which is why there's always something to be grateful for, because again, it could be worse. You may as well be grateful for the blessing that you do have, because nothing is promised in this life. No one said this life was going to be fair, and no one said you're promised or entitled to anything. Gratitude is a central value of mine for myself and for my family, and I hold it up so high because it is so potent and so powerful to helping cope with life that is just hard. Life on earth is hard. Gratitude helps balance the scales even just a little bit. Life is still going on. Justin found out his diagnosis. We still have to do a birthday party for our three-year-old, right? He's turning three. Was he turning three? Yeah, he was turning three. No, he was turning two. Yeah, so life is still going on. We have to throw our two-year-old a birthday party, and again, you're doing these things, and you're trying to act like normal. Life isn't just completely uprooted. So we have kid birthday parties we're going to. Justin was so excited for baby girl, and especially once we found out that it was going to be a girl, because we were hoping we would get a boy and a girl, and we were so excited when we found out it was a girl. We would have loved anyone who came to us. We would have been so excited and grateful, but it was extra special because I just feel like there's a lack of girls on Justin's side of the family. So for us to have a little girl, it was just nice to have a girl present on that side. Justin has one brother, and then his mom had two brothers. His brother's husband and him had two boys, and his brother's husband has a brother. So it's just all boys on that side. So we were excited to give everybody a girl, and we had agreed on the name so easily, not like our first baby. We had a hard time with boy names, but we agreed right away. We always knew we liked that name for a girl, so things were coming easy. Thankfully, I had a very easy pregnancy. I started to show right away, mostly because I still had my belly for my first kid. But I had, thankfully, a very easy pregnancy. I had a relatively easy first pregnancy as well, but the second one was especially easy and chill. I just was, because I knew what to expect, I was able to enjoy it. The pregnancy wasn't as much of a complicating factor to this situation because I wasn't going through some of the hard stuff that a lot of people go through in pregnancy. Everything went smoothly for my pregnancy and even the birth, which I'll get to later. Everything was smooth. Everything was going smooth until the end when I was so big and uncomfortable and I couldn't find comfortable ways of being. But other than that, all the way up until basically the end, I had a pretty easy pregnancy, thankfully. We just adored this baby girl. I wanted to just share one really sweet memory. When my son was a baby, I used to sing him a lot of Beatles songs. I'm a big Beatles fan. I used to sing a ton of Beatles songs to him and a couple other things, like a couple Spanish songs that I would sing to him. I still sing those same songs, some of them to him, and they're his songs. I wanted to do the same. I actually recorded about 10 minutes of different songs that I used to sing. I would leave it with a babysitter to play as a lullaby or even Justin because Justin didn't do as much bedtime stuff with our firstborn because I was breastfeeding and I was home for his first birthday. It was his first year, so I was able to do a lot more, which means Justin didn't do as much as I did for feeding and bedtime. It was easier for me to just nurse him. With this second baby, we definitely wanted Justin and other people to be able to feed the baby more than we did with the first one. That was one plan. We were going to try and bottle feed more, which means I would have had to pump more, which I hated. I really wanted Justin and Justin's mom especially to have more of that experience with feeding the baby. It's just really special to have that connection. I wanted them to be able to have that more. I felt more confident that we could do it and how to do it. Anyway, the sweet memory. With this baby, I think we were coming back from a Mayo Clinic appointment. I'm pretty sure. I don't remember exactly the timeframe. I was definitely pregnant. I remember I was driving. I wonder if it was one of the infusions. That was always crazy to show up to his appointments with him. At some point, I did need to start coming with him regularly to his appointments. There was a point in time where he was able to do a lot by himself. Then there came a point where he really needed help. I don't know if we were at that point yet, but I was definitely pregnant. I had come with him. I remember distinctly being at one of his infusions. He was very excited to show me off to all the nurses and stuff. Justin was a very magnetic person. I don't know why I'm getting emotional thinking about this. He was so lovable. He was very likable. He was easy to get along with. He was easy to talk to. He was fun. In high school, for his superlative, he was voted simply irresistible. He freaking hated it when I would bring that up. I would make fun of him. Not make fun of him, but it bothered him. Again, he wasn't a person who liked a lot of attention on him. He didn't really like the spotlight. He was too much of a troublemaker, a mischievous type of troublemaker. Not a bad troublemaker, but he was mischievous. He liked to function in that mischief in the shadows. I think he didn't like the spotlight on him in a lot of different ways, especially if it was overly complimentary. He liked it one-on-one. If it was me specifically telling him how great he was, how much I loved him, and just pouring love onto him, he liked that. He liked private words of affirmation and love and stuff being poured over him, but he didn't like it in such a public way, especially after college. I think he was much more outgoing and boisterous and stuff in high school and college, but once he got out, he started getting his big boy pants on and becoming more reserved and different things. I've gone on such a major tangent here. Anyway, he was simply irresistible. He got that superlative in high school, and I felt like it always suited him, even when I met him as just my roommate and friend. I always thought that way of him. He's so lovable. He's so likable. You can bring him anywhere with whatever group, and he will get along with everybody, and everyone loves him. He is just a very lovable person. Yeah, he was simply irresistible. I know he's probably like, stop saying that out loud. Anyway, I remember this one time we went to his infusion, and I was very pregnant, very obviously pregnant. I was a very obviously pregnant person for both pregnancies. My belly, I didn't gain weight in other places, just my belly would be this perfectly big, round belly, and everything else looked normal. It was pretty obvious whenever I've been pregnant. Actually, that's my favorite version of my body is second trimester pregnant body. That's my favorite version of my body. We had gone to one of his infusions, and I had hung out with him, and he was excited to just show me around and introduce me to his favorite nurses, and be like, here's my pregnant wife, and here's our baby. Look at this baby in the belly. I want to say it was one of those times where I'd come with him. We were chilling. He was getting his infusion. Just imagine the scene. You walk up to this huge medical facility, state-of-the-art, beautiful medical facility. You walk up to the elevators. You go to the oncology ward. You go to check in for your appointment. First of all, you go to your lab work. He would always show up. Anytime he did infusions, he'd have to do lab work first. Those infusions were very, very hard on people's livers. That was one of the main first things that was like, if your liver can't take this, we can't do this. Thankfully, it was able to take it, but that's how you get tested. If the liver numbers are in a certain range, he wasn't allowed to get an infusion that day. It always started off, we'd walk in. He goes to get his blood work. Then we start making our way up to the oncology department. You're walking up, young-looking guy, good-looking guy, smiley, looks healthy and normal. Wouldn't think he's a cancer patient walking up with his wife. These two people look young. One of them's obviously pregnant. The other one's obviously the partner. You're walking towards this oncology room, this oncology waiting area. It's just a sad scene. It's a sad thing to think about. I can only imagine what some of the folks in there were thinking, especially because they're all usually older than us. Usually, it was a bunch of grandmas and grandpas that we were walking up near. I can only imagine. I could feel the thoughts. I could feel them thinking, what are they doing here? Oh, my God. I hope neither of them have cancer. She's pregnant. Oh, my God. I can just feel the thoughts because that's what I would be thinking in my head is like, oh, no, no, no, that is not. You don't want to think about that. You don't want to see that. That was our reality, walking up, pregnant wife in tow, young dude with cancer, doing our appointment. From the appointment, we go straight to infusion. That would be a typical day for Justin getting his treatment there. Obviously, sometimes we would talk about scans. They would go over the scans. That was always a very overwhelming and anxiety-producing day is the day that we're going to look at scans. We do the infusion. He's showing me off to all the nurses. There's always really great volunteers at the Mayo Clinic that are offering different things to all the patients. There's amazing pianists that were always there in some of the areas doing their music. There was a guitar player who would come around and play different things on different days. They might do a 90s day or a classic rock or something like that. They'd have an acoustic guitarist in the middle of the infusion unit. They would have an emotional support dog. It would be a golden retriever walking around that you could pet. There would be people offering hand and arm massages with lotion. They have a lot of really beautiful offerings for people undergoing these treatments. We were there doing our treatment. On our way back, I'm pretty sure it was one of these days because I feel like I was pregnant. I was driving. He had just done his infusion. We were talking about some of the songs that I wanted to sing to our baby girl the way that I had done for our son. I don't know if it just happened to come up on the radio or if he chose it and proposed it as a song. Regardless, it became his choice for baby girl for her song. It's the Lauryn Hill version of, what's it called? You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off of you. It was Can't Take My Eyes Off of You. I remember when he announced that that is the song that he wants to sing to her. I was like, what's the song you want to sing to her? He was like, that's the one. Either he put it on or it came on and he said this one. I feel like he put it on. I can't remember, but he chose that one. I started crying while driving. It brought tears to my eyes. It made me so emotional and so happy. I was like, that's just the sweetest song ever for a baby girl from her dad. He would sing that song to my belly every night. Once we selected that song, we would do belly time and I would just lay in bed next to him rubbing his head. He would sing that song to my belly to the baby. I have so many videos of him doing that. It was just one of the sweetest, most tender moments of our life at that time. That I'll cherish always. I'll never forget that. I want his daughter to know that he loved her so much and would sing that to her. He loved her when she was just a little tiny kidney bean sized baby, human fetus inside of my belly. He was meant to be a dad and he loved being a dad, even in those moments where you can't even hold your baby yet, but he was holding her from the outside. To get back to what I was saying, life was still going on. All these things were still happening alongside our cancer journey and that's kind of how it is for everybody. Life gets so hard and yet you have to continue on with these normal, everyday things. You have your regular, everyday things you're doing. You have your doctor's appointments. You have your pregnant wife. You have your treatments. You have your son. We sent him to daycare for the first time during that time. We were trying to potty train him. Justin was a very handy person. He was good at fixing things. He knew how to fix a good amount of things in the house. As a homeowner, once he got his cancer diagnosis, I feel like his mind immediately went to, I need to prepare for the end because the end is imminent and I need to start getting things in order. Some of that was house projects. He redid all of the flooring. His mom helped as well, but he primarily did all of the flooring in our play area. We had this open loft, kind of extra space in our home that he wanted to transform into a really cute, kind of like Montessori-style playroom, which just was really cute. A lot of tans and khakis and whites and grays and cute baskets and cute wicker baskets and cute decor that was very neutrals and just pretty and nice looking. He had a vision for that playroom and he really wanted to give the kids a really nice, cute playroom that was well done. Our playroom, that loft was so messed up when we first moved in there. It was like a football room and it had this weird astroturf in the middle, but no flooring underneath and the walls were red and black. It was a mess. He redid all the flooring, got that all set up. He did all the baseboards in our home. This is all in his first year of cancer. Did the baseboards, cut them himself, primed them, painted them, nailed them in. He did the whole thing. I helped, but I'm usually more of the assistant in these projects than the primary person, so I'm just kind of doing what he tells me to do and usually I'm on cleanup. He's doing all the research. He's making things happen. We have Halloween. We're dressing up. We're decorating the house, putting up the lights. Justin's birthday. Justin didn't tell a lot of people at the time what was going on. I'm not a religious person, but I have a lot of beliefs about this world and my theories of why things are the way they are and what things are like outside of life on earth. I tend to believe that there are very few actual accidents or coincidences that are not somehow part of the greater story. Again, side story, but Justin's friend had come out to visit us. They were actually out in Sedona and they were like, hey, are you in the Phoenix area? We were like, yeah, we're here. Justin was like, oh, yeah. The friend was like, well, we want to come by and say hi. I want you to meet my wife and I want to meet your wife and blah, blah, blah. I had met this friend before. I'll call him P. P was coming down and I was like, well, are you going to tell him about your diagnosis? He was like, yeah, I think I have to. I was like, yeah, I think you have to. These friends were the first friends we had to tell in person about his diagnosis and it was so hard. It was hard to watch their face as they absorbed the information and all of the dread and fear for us and pain for us of how sad the situation was because they came in. I don't know if they knew I was pregnant, but we told them and it was very obvious. Again, I looked pregnant pretty much right off the bat with the second baby. We told them that. He had cancer and of course it was a huge shock and we found out that they were actually expecting a baby one month before our baby. So that was really like crazy. Coincidence. We both didn't know. Well, we didn't know that they had been, they were expecting. And so when we told him P about that situation, about our situation, he never left his side and he rallied his other college buddies. There were three of them that were really close to Justin. He rallied those guys and those guys stuck by Justin the whole time. They made sure to check on him. They made sure to talk shit to him. They made sure to talk basketball to him. They were all basketball fans and Justin was a basketball fan. He was a Lakers fan for life and Kobe. And, um, you know, they brought joy into his life. They brought friendship and they were there for him as much as they could be. And in fact, they really made an effort to, to be there for him by coming out to visit that December. And they live in different, everyone lives in different areas. So, um, like we have one in LA, one is up near the Bay area and the other one is in New York. So everyone came together in Phoenix in Scottsdale to have the special boys weekend with Justin in December. And three of them, including ourselves were expecting babies. The other one, the other friend already had, has older kids, not older, but elementary age. So they were just like in their dad era, these college guys expecting babies. Some of them, you know, Justin had, but we had our toddler and the other friend had his baby. So it was like such a dad moment. It was everything Justin would have wanted. Justin always wanted to be connected to friends and for our kids to be connected and they were there for him. I'm so grateful that he had these friends because Justin wasn't really someone who. I guess like I always have been a person who's had a lot of, not a lot, but several really strong friendships through my life since I was very young, since I was a kid that are enduring it even now, like at our wedding, my whole side was almost all chosen family with a few of my actual relatives and Justin's whole side was all relatives with like maybe a couple friends. So like that was kind of our balance. Like he had a lot more family and I had a lot more friend family. He had a lot more blood family or, you know, whatever, like relatives like that. And I had a lot more friend family. So he wasn't always a person who like kept up with his friendships, but these friends really were there for him. And I'm so grateful to you guys. If you listen to this, you know who you are. P. D. A. PDA. Yeah. PDA. Very grateful for you guys. And that's a lot that you were there for Justin. So anyway, I'm just saying, I'm trying to paint the picture that like we were still doing all these things and I won't go too deep into this, but like, I also had a lot of issues going on with. Nevermind. I'll skip that. It's already going along. So all that's going on, Christmas is happening. Christmas goes good. One thing I'll say is that, is that the year we got that? No, I think it was the following year. Nevermind. So Christmas goes good. Of course, we're like, it's good. Every time it would be a big thing, it would be like, this could be the last one for Justin. Yeah. So, you know, like that Christmas, that Thanksgiving, that cruise, all these, you know, the birthday party for our then two year old, a lot of times these moments would pop up and it would be like, in my mind, and I'm sure in his mind, it was like, this could be the last fill in the blank. This could be the last Christmas with Justin. This could be the last Thanksgiving with Justin. This could be Justin's last birthday. This could be the last trip we take. This could be the last of our son's birthdays that we spend together with Justin here with us. But even though, you know, Justin would sometimes bring up his future demise, in a way, it wasn't like I could bring, anytime I would bring up something remotely like that, he would kind of go into a bit of a tailspin. He'd be like, why are you saying that? Do you think that I look like I'm dying? Like, do you think I look rough? Like, do you think, what, why are you saying that? Like, he would really worry. And it would kind of send him into a panic, not a panic, but it would send him into this worry spiral. So like, I could never mention like, in case this is your last whatever. We didn't talk like that. But that was what I was thinking in my head. A lot of the times it would be like, what if this is the last one? Again, like, I'm mostly still leaning positive and mostly still being like, well, you know, let's just see how things go, blah, blah, blah. Let's just see how things go. And we don't know. If we don't know, let's lean positive. If we know, then we work to accept it and move forward. And, you know, one thing I did want to just touch on was, when we first found out, there were a bunch of things that Justin wanted to do to prepare. And that's really what I wanted to share a little bit about, because I think that might be helpful. Because these are, I know we don't want to think about our dying and things like that. But we never thought we would have to think about this. And that's what all the experts say is no one plans for this. No one hopes for this. But if you don't make some plans for it, and it does happen, it makes things so much harder. And if you can do a little bit of prep, it makes things easier. And not everybody gets an illness where, you know, they have time to tie up loose ends. Sometimes it's a sudden situation, and you want to have some things in order. So these are some things that we did to prepare for this moment, for the moment when he passed, and for making life smoother for me with the kids after he passes, after he passed. So the first and possibly one of the most important things we did to prepare was something we did before he even got diagnosed. So I really hope this message hits people who, so I really hope this message reaches people who need to do this and have this reminder. When our first child was born, we got life insurance. When our first child was born, we got life insurance right after that. So that is one of the main reasons I'm still afloat after his passing. That was one of the most, he always, like, especially after he found out his diagnosis, he was like, thank goodness you made us do that. Thank goodness you made us do that. Because if we didn't do that, we would be screwed right now, because my income working in my field as a health educator, usually in a public health type space or a nonprofit space or a community health space, doesn't necessarily pay very well. So we would have been screwed without his income. So that is one of the most important things that we did, and I have to give a little shout out to my employer at the time when I was in Palm Springs. It was Desert Oasis Healthcare. It was a great place to work. I loved working there. I only left because we moved to Arizona. But they used to have a lot of beneficial things to employees. One of the things they would have was, like, these lunch and learns, and they would have, often they would have financial folks come, usually the people who had our, who offered our 401ks and stuff like that. They would come and just do these talks about, like, budgeting basics or, you know, general financial wellness or debt, talking about debt. And one of the times that they came, they were talking about life insurance. And that's when I first started learning about life insurance. And I remember them saying specifically the types of things that I say now, which is, no one ever plans to die young. No one ever plans to be disabled young and not able to work. And better to have the life insurance than not. And because of that talk, and because I got to do one-on-ones with those advisors, it convinced me to, that that was important. Because what if something happens and our child is left with nothing? And I told Justin that I wanted us to get life insurance policies right before Julian was, I wanted us to get life insurance policies right before our first child was born. We ended up getting it just barely after he was born, which was fine. But we got that policy because we started our family together. So thank all, thank everything that is good and holy in this world, because if I didn't do that and Justin didn't go with me along with that, we would have been screwed right now. I would definitely not been able to move from Phoenix to Portland. I would not be able to take some time off of work before I have to go back. It has made the aftermath of such a huge loss. And I remember them saying this too. They were just like, when you lose a partner, you're going to be messed up. The last thing you want to do is keep up what you're doing. You want to be able to take some time with your kids and heal, blah, blah, blah. They said the things that I say in my head now. So I'm really thankful that I had a great employer at the time who offered these additional benefits for all kinds of wellness, including financial wellness for the employees. And that I heard that message and that I took it seriously and that Justin also took it seriously with me. I wanted to get a higher policy. Justin was like, we don't even probably need this, so let's just get a little bit lower. But I remember they told me basically the way you calculate how much coverage you need is the idea is that if someone passes early and you're relying on their income, you want to calculate how much would be required for how many years to keep things afloat for your family. Because you can assume your kids eventually will make their own money, like in their 20s. You want to get them through college, stuff like that. So you want to calculate how many years you would have been relying on that income and go based on that amount for that many years. What is their income right now and times that by how many years? What is their annual income times that by how many years? And that's about how much you want for your policy. And we got a 30-year term policy, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, so we got that in place. And then it was only two years later, not even, almost two years, that Justin found out his diagnosis. So he was terrified that the policy would be invalid because he thought maybe the insurance would claim something like, we knew about this ahead of time. Like he was worried about the insurance claiming fraud or something like that, which just wasn't the case. And like I joked at the time, I'm like, well, if we were making it up at the time, like if we knew about this at the time, it would have been cool if someone would have told us, you know, because we had to do medical exams and stuff for this. So like, if they would have told us ahead of time, maybe we would have caught it and we wouldn't be in this situation. But we obviously didn't know it's a fast growing cancer. It wasn't in existence at that time, two years prior. But he was a worrying person. He was a person who worried about a lot of different things, even though to everybody he seemed very like happy and joyful and fun loving and stuff like that. But he really worried about a lot of things, especially just he was a provider in his heart. He wanted to make sure his family was okay. He planned on making sure his family was okay. And it was just like vitally important to him that we were not going to struggle financially in his absence. And before that, just like in general, he always wanted to make sure we would have a good life and we would, you know, have enough money to do everything that is, you know, not we're not rich or anything like that. You know, and I mean, like, it's, he just wanted to make sure we could give the kids a good life, a nice place to live, you know, sports and activities and go on some trips here and there and just have like a normal life where nobody goes hungry and nobody is suffering because of money. So getting a life insurance policy was the first most important thing we did. Oh, yeah. Now what I was going to say is that his fears about us not receiving it, that was later quelled because they have a certain timeframe to challenge anything about the applicants. And they had been outside of that timeframe. So there was no way they could challenge the medical findings from the exam that they administered. So we were out of that window. So that was not a concern. So that was another weight lifted off of Justin's chest when our financial advisor told us that, no, they have this amount of time to challenge or, you know, further investigate someone if they have questions about what they've reported on their applications and they are outside of that window. So there's no way they can challenge this. Okay. So life insurance, that was the number one thing that we did ahead of time. We thought we did ahead of time. The things we did, the rest of the things we did to prepare, I mean, for the most part, Justin was a very good saver. He was very frugal. He was very strict with me about spending. So he also just made sure to be in like, you know, live below your means, save as much as you can mindset. He was just kind of that way and his parents instilled that in him as well. So he made sure to save as much as we could as a couple for our kids and then we got the life insurance and then the rest of the preparations were once he found out he was, what his diagnosis was and his prognosis. Basically, within the same month of finding out his diagnosis, he immediately made an appointment with a person in the surprise area to do our family trust. And that trust included all of our assets, like our home that we had just bought, our cars at the time. Our savings, the life insurance policy, stuff like that. And then also it included like a will, power of attorney, like durable power of attorney, medical. It included all the things, the living will, power of attorneys, what's that other thing? Advance directive. So it included everything. That was one thing Justin wanted to make sure we put in place right away. So we did that. Then we also started working with a financial advisor that his family in Rhode Island, his brother and his mom in Arizona was also working with. So we joined in on the family plan for financial advising. And that was so then we started getting to know him and I still work with him very closely even now. And we were able to kind of talk and strategize like what would be the plan once Justin passes. So it was good to just get to know him ahead of time and work with him ahead of time and do regular meetings with him and just talk about the life insurance. And he was able to guide us on that and say, no, the two year, whatever the window for them to look into it is over. So you're good. This is going to go through. It will be fine. I can be the main person managing this instead of the person from over there. So we moved that to him. Another thing, which I think a lot of couples are, we're probably already doing this, but Justin and I met as roommates and we lived a lot of our life kind of in a similar way as housemates for a long time. We used to do separate groceries. That changed once we got kids. But I mean, we were together for so long before that. And we still did separate groceries. Part of that was because we have different dietary. We have different approaches to our diet. I've been plant based since 2009. And he just didn't always eat the same things as I did. And we didn't always make the same meals. So it was just natural for us to buy things separately. And with that being said, we used to also have separate money. We never combined our accounts. We would always do a bills list and an IOU list and we would calculate how much we owe each other. And admittedly, that was probably more from my end just because I couldn't wrap my head around just like if someone owed more than the other person. It drove my brain crazy. So I would have to know the exact amount of things. But that was something we started realizing. Once we found out his diagnosis and we started kind of settling into that understanding and accepting what that means, which is I knew that it meant that in some way his life was going to be cut short by this disease. In my head, I was still thinking it would be I was still hopeful it would be a long time from now. I mean, not a long time the way you live a long time. But I was hoping we would get like 15 to 20 more years with him. I was hoping he would be able to overcome it and heal and be cancer free for a long period of time. Obviously, that didn't happen. And I knew it was a possibility that the prognosis they were giving us could play out the two to five years. But a lot of things that used to be issues started to just be obviously not important anymore. So one thing was like the little IOUs and all the little things. So we started merging our finances, finally just put all our money together in one account. That felt so good. I wish we could have been able to do that before. But it felt good to just like really be a team and merge and not be so guarded with our money, even though we were living life together for so long, and we were sharing expenses for everything already. But it just felt nice to actually put it all in the same account. So we got our account situated. We were working with the financial advisor and just planning out how things will go down, who I need to contact once Justin passes, how I need to go about getting the insurance money, what the plan is for the longevity of our kids. It's like we have had college funds for them since each of them were born. So keeping that kind of stuff going, just talking about what we see for the future for our kids, and then getting the will and the living trust in place with who's going to be in charge of our kids if both of us pass and what happens to our assets. Who's going to be in charge of the assets if we pass and monitoring that for our kids and what age are the kids going to get the things. And so it was really important for Justin to just button all those things up and make sure that I was set up and that I knew what the plan was going to be. He was the money guy. He was smart with money. He was smart with numbers. He was smart with investments. That was a skill set that he had and that he had from his dad. His dad was smart like that too. So that was something we definitely did right off the bat. Justin wanted to do that right away. The last couple things were some things that really did make it easier for me once he did pass. It was he made a list of all of his passwords and that really helped a lot because once he passed there were a lot of different things I needed his passwords for. And then I also he also kind of started making like a list of household things just things for me to think about. He didn't fully get to finish out that list but he would sometimes like I mentioned before he would sometimes be in his head especially in the beginning where he would really be I'm sure he was thinking about all these things like oh my God if I die is he's not going to know how to do this is he's not going to know how to do that. And then he would kind of pop quiz me sometimes like do you know how to turn the pool pump on and off stuff like that that he would ask me if I knew how to do it or whatever. So stuff like that I was like can you write those things down somewhere so that I because I'm not going to remember right now like or send me a video and I'll save the video or something of you doing it like the sprinklers. I don't know how to work those things stuff like that just either write down a list so that I have some instruction. So he started that but I haven't really used that as much. I didn't have to figure too much out. And then the but the passwords list that was vitally important. I needed that one mistake I did make which I don't know. I didn't think about this at the time but it kind of caused some problems for me is that I canceled his phone line like right away and there were certain accounts that were tied to his phone number and even now sometimes I'll try to access something and it'll want to send a passcode to verify to his old phone number and there's no way for me to change it other than like calling the company which is super annoying to me and trying to talk to them about it. Then I have to send them a death certificate. I have to send them our marriage license stuff like that to prove that I have access to it. So it just causes a bit of a problem. So that's one thing to consider is that if you lose a loved one and you need to access their accounts and you're in charge of their phone maybe don't cancel the phone so quickly. And just if you have access to the passwords and stuff what I would have done differently is maybe I would have tested out all of those to just make sure that it's all hooked up to my phone or it's email only so that way when I do access it all I need is the email access which I did have access to that. So those were the main things really that Justin really wanted to get on top of certain preparations and getting things in order before shit went down. That was a big thing and he would say this to me sometimes like things are going to get a lot harder and a lot worse and I'm going to need, you're going to have to do a lot more to basically take care of me. Things are just going to get worse from here and I need to get these things in order so that when that happens I'm not scrambling or trying to figure all these things out. So I'm just very grateful that he was able to do so much to prepare for this to happen, for his eventual demise and to make it as easy as possible for me and he definitely did that. We are very fortunate. I always say this to people around me who know my story and know what's been going on for us these past few years. I always say I'm very, very fortunate in this really crappy situation we got a lot of things right because there are people in my exact situation with no money, with maybe they didn't even have a job when their spouse died, they have no savings, they have no life insurance, they have to keep going, they have to keep hustling, working several different jobs with their kids, being so young. People literally in my exact same situation but way worse off and my heart breaks for people in those situations and in that level of suffering and I can't even or I can only imagine what it's like to be in my situation with this horrible thing that happens that's such a heartbreaking situation and then to have these extra challenges and burdens on top of you, that breaks my heart and I feel for anyone going through all of that and I just pray for their pain to be manageable and lifted and for everything to work out for the best and for everyone to just be alleviated from suffering. Alright, well I think that's going to wrap it up for me today. This was a bit of a longer one I think. So thanks for being here with me and I want to always end with some gratitude and today I really just I want to express my gratitude for all of you. Today I want to express my gratitude for just all of the blessings that I get to have in this life. My good health, my kids' good health, being in a place where I feel accepted and loved and supported and where there are people that I've known for a really long time and who know me and love me and support me and my kids and help me and that I can help back and that I live in this beautiful place with this moody mist all around us and these beautiful trees and the fall colors. And the cold cozy weather and I have two great dogs that live with me. I have an amazing brother. I have the opportunity to celebrate Halloween with my kids and with all their friends and with my friends. I'm able to go to Florida soon to visit with my grandma who's almost 90 years old and has not met my youngest and hasn't seen my five-year-old since we were there when Justin got diagnosed when he was one and a half years old. I'm just very, very grateful for the way life is right now so connected to my village and my community. I'm missing a few people in Arizona, definitely, especially my sisters, Allison. There are quite a few special people in Arizona that I am grateful for and who were there for us during our hardest times. So I'm just very grateful for all the people in my life and I hope you all are able to feel some powerful and beautiful gratitude for yourselves and your lives. As well. Au revoir!