Kerry,

You've gotten lots of great advice about some of the positive aspects of "moving on" to the rest of your life (which I totally agree with). Also, even though it may feel like a lot of time has passed since your husband's treatment, and he may think he should be fully recovered, I can tell you it took me much longer than that to get where I could really enjoy eating again, and a very long time to heal to the point where I could get some additional saliva back. (I also had XRT and there was nothing available at the time to preserve saliva glands, so for me it's been a slow process with a combination of medication, careful dental hygiene, some extra fluids, and Biotene rinses.)

Then, as I was starting to feel more fully recovered, my husband went through a serious health crisis of his own with an extended hospital stay and several weeks more of recovery at home, and we had a role reversal for awhile.

Like many other people, I found that this kind of experience shook up my approach to my career, as well as several other aspects of my life, and it was uncomfortable for awhile as I tried to figure out what I could do and what I thought I SHOULD do. I actually came to see that there were parts of the "old life" that weren't as great as I once thought and that this was a chance to do some things very differently. I've said it here before and I'll say it again -- if someone told me now that I could go back 18 years and erase the whole cancer experience and then just continue on with the "old life", I'd say "no thanks". I've had too many great opportunities that have opened up that I never would have been in a position to see or follow up on if I had just kept on with the old routine and what I was accustomed to in the "old life".

Cathy