My husband has been sick for months. The past months, he has been in the hospital and was not responding to treatment. After his first blood transfusion, I gave him my Giving Key – strength – that I wore all the time because he was so sick, and I watched my military husband become a skeleton, scared out of my mind. This past week, it was decided he needed to be transferred to a new hospital and have an eight hour surgery, so as we packed up his stuff so he could go by ambulance, I put it back in his hand and told him I would meet him at the new hospital. He had it in his hand when I got to see him again. He put it beside his bed. Yesterday was surgery day to remove his whole colon. Before he went, he told me thank you for the Giving Key, and strength is a great word for our relationship and our past five months out of the seven we have been married and that he would see me after. After surgery, it was amazing to see my husband talk more like his old self and have a bit more strength than he did before, even with the pain from the procedure. We still have a long road ahead of us. He needs to put weight back on and regain his own strength so he can have the second surgery, get back to serving our country, and take back his life So far, in just a couple weeks, I think he is embracing the word more than I ever did and is being so brave.
-Elizabeth
