Kevin: The Story, Inspiration and Encouragement

This inside page to my blog can only be read by folks clicking on links in my blog who are interested in back stories to my posts or crafts/creations on my blog.  Not just a general post which is indexed by Google and other search engines.  So you have arrived at this page, because you are interested, so here goes.

First off, thank you for coming by to get more of an insight into my blog and my life.

MY JOURNEY AND THE STRENGTH THAT HE CONTINUES TO GIVE ME

My name is Suzanne and my husband was Kevin Lathrop.  He passed away on Jan 30, 2013, after a 5 year, 8 month battle against stage 4 kidney cancer.  He died without any cancer pain, peacefully in his sleep, in our home.  It wasn't actually cancer he died from, but kidney failure.  He wasn't feeling well, had mobility issues for some time, and on Jan 27, a dear friend of ours and I convinced him to go to the E.R. at our local hospital to figure out why things were escalating down so quickly (like the fact he wasn't urinating at that point).  Long story short, his one remaining kidney had completely stopped, and he was in renal failure.  He was sent home to start hospice and told that he didn't have much longer on this Earth.  In fact, he died, sometime between 1230a-4:30a on Jan 30, and was only in hospice care from Monday evening, until he passed away less than 2 days later.

We were married for 15 short years, and he was truely, my HERO.  He never cried a TEAR over cancer.  He was a very devout Christian man, who had such a love for God, that it makes me smile to this day, to know that never for one moment did he doubt the exsitance of God but KNEW the He was always near. 

One of Kevin's biggest fears, thru his journey with cancer,  was that I would be angry at God for his cancer.  He said, "Suzanne, GOD didn't give me cancer, it just happened."

Who says that?  Kevin.  That's who.  When our oncologist had to tell us on Feb 13, 2012, that all traditional chemo had failed and there was no more traditional chemo to take for kidney cancer, Kevin reached over, and took the doctors hand and told him "It will be okay, Dr. AliKhan, because I know you have done your best you could for me, and I'm thankful to God that He sent me to you."  Yes, consoling a doctor when he has to tell you that you are without any more treatment for your stage 4 cancer.  THAT is the man Our Lord blessed me to call my mate.  

In fact, he was just a kind and understanding man, that when the hospice workers were here, getting him comfortable in his hospital bed (he was deteriorating quickly and I couldn't even move him to his side for comfort any longer), he reminded the girls to "life with your legs, not your back- don't hurt yourself!"  Yes, a dying man is making sure these nurses and caregivers didn't HURT themselves, and he would soon be with the Lord.  Yup.  He IS my Hero (even though to the World he's in the passed tense)

I could go on an on about Kevin, and the kind of man he was (even though, in my heart, I so want to say "is").  I might write a book some day.  

So, I will give quick reasons here with links back to the posts I've sent you to this page from, and how they tie in.

MY HERO CHAIR GETS BUSY:   That chair I called my Hero Chair because on Feb 13, 2012 after a very hard day for us both ---we had to have our beloved cat, Butterscotch, put to sleep, just one and a half hours before hearing the news from the oncologist, that no other known chemo was available to Kevin.  He did get another oral chemotherapy drug approved for Kevin to take but it would be palliative care, and we both knew that.  That oral chemo lasted from Feb 13, '12 until the final failure and NO OTHER drug at all available on Aug 12, 2012.  

By that time I had stopped blogging.  Kevin always loved when I did creative things and "happy things" as he called him and though I'm not very good, he always enjoyed me doing things and fully supported and encouraged me to do them.  He knew I was really shaken by the events of Feb 13, 2012, but he started asking me things like "Where is the Happy Suzi?  You aren't allowing the Happy Suzi to come out and play".  So, though I wasn't feeling creative, and was deep in shock, I still managed to paint a simple ugly chair and at least make it look "normal" because I was feeling far from "normal".  But, I was trying hard, for Kevin's sake to create and to blog about it.  This lasted for just three projects until I stopped blogging completely at my original blog.  (A chair 2/22, a simple dresser 3/1 and one ink jet printer craft that took all of 2 min to complete, 3/4, and then the blog just stopped.)

So, I decided to finally try the mod podge image transfer method on a piece of furniture and the Hero Chair was an obvious choice for me, because Kevin would have loved that I was getting crafty again, and he knew how much I love mod podge (I've even gotten HIS fingers sticky with the stuff before!  He was a trooper!)