2023 has been quite a year, filled with extreme highs and extreme lows. The best part of 2023 was our wedding. It was perfect in every way, just not the way we expected it to happen.
The First Proposal
Tracy proposed to me on February 11, 2023, and we got straight to the business of wedding and marriage. Within a couple weeks, we had the date set and most of the things scheduled. We were ready. We also were trying to figure out meanwhile when we could fit a hiking trip in before the wedding in August of 2023.
The Hiccup and the Second Proposal
In early April 2023, Tracy noticed symptoms that started to become alarming – enough that we decided to go to the emergency room for tests. The test came back and stunned us both. Leukemia. They immediately transferred him to another hospital, where he started treatment right away. Everything in our world halted. Doctors informed us that nothing but treatment would be our lives for the foreseeable future. Devastation hit us. We had to start cancelling everything, including our wedding.
When Tracy initially checked in, we learned that his condition surprised the unit. He felt fine, no pain, nothing. They do believe that with the saturation of cancer in his system, he would’ve had a stroke or heart attack in the near future. His white blood cell count was 138,000 – normal ranges are 4,500 to 11,000. Immature white blood cells had essentially clogged him up.
Over the next few days, we learned what we were fighting, what it would take to fight it and what changes to our future were looking like. We learned that he had the diagnosis of T-ALL (T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) and given the number of white blood cells, his age and other factors, it was going to be a fight. They gave us a terrible prognosis, 50% chance of being here a year from now.
After two days of intense chemotherapy, we discussed our future. On April 4, 2023, I proposed to Tracy. We decided to get married after he left the hospital but before starting ongoing chemotherapy treatments. Marry we did, in early May 2023. It was a wonderful yet intimate ceremony with our families.
Our Goals Moving Forward 2023 and Beyond
We hope to get back out to the mountains, but for now, it’s delayed. Tracy is nearly done with the intense chemotherapy treatments and will soon begin healing and mending his body.
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