hay kaiyak...

Jenny Lee Ford and John Ford have been married for 12yrs and while they’ve have been through the normal ups and downs together, Jenny’s diagnosis with breast cancer was as experience neither of them expected to have to handle. This is their story.

Jenny’s story
John was actually the one who broke the news to me I had cancer. I was doing some grocery shopping and he called and asked to meet for coffee, which he never does. I thought he was going to tell me he had been sacked or something.

John was very supportive all the way through. We talked about it a lot, about all the side effects of the drugs and the strange things happened to my body – for example, at 4pm everyday I would bloat really noticeably. Within two and a half weeks of the first session my hair came out. I called john and told him. He reassured me, ‘it will grow back. Are you okay?’

He didn’t share my dismay over losing my hair – he just bought a pair of scissors and chopped it off in the bathroom, assuring me I still looked beautiful. He was a tower of strength for me and was always so composed, but I found out from friends afterwards how he felt. They would say, ‘he’s worried about you’, you know or ‘you are doing very well but john is worried that you are on your own and he wants to be with you’. I don’t know if he cried, he never cried in front of me.

We recently moved house and came across a jar I used to keep to put wishes in. I decided it was time to throw the jar out, but decided to have one final read through my old wishes. I looked inside and found that John had written on a piece of paper, ‘I wish that all my wife’s pain would go away’. He’s lovely like that.

Masakit pa din ang mga mata to dahil sa pagpigil kong maluha. Nakakataouch naman ang istoryang ito. Siguro kung normal lang ako na mambabasa ay wala namang epekto ito sa akin kaso habang binabasa ko ito unti unting nanariwa sa akin ang napagdaanan ng aking ina. Biglang tumulo ang mga luha ko. Naalala ko ang kanyang unang iyak, ang paglagas ng kanyang buhok at paghihina ng kanyang katawan habang nakikipaglaban sya sa kanyang sakit. Parang sasabog na ang puso ko. Gusto ko ng umuwi at yakapin sya ng mahigpit.