Ep 16: Coping With Continuous Seasons of Suffering

I had 51% chance of survival. It literally felt like I had a quarter in my hand and I got to flip it. You get healthy. What else happens that year, 2022? I'm so in tune with God. And then Brandon got sick. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls. But what if it felt like you were constantly up to bat? Just when you think things might finally be getting better, your partner is diagnosed with cancer. Would you still believe that God is good? In today's episode, our guest dives into a story of love, loss, and faith that's been tested more than many of us can imagine. If you've experienced extended seasons of suffering, this episode is for you. Today's episode looks a little bit different. Normally, I'm in the hot seat and Chris Farrell is the one hosting and asking all the hard questions. This week I'm going to host. We have a special guest, Crystal, with us today. Crystal's no stranger to hard things in life, things that she's experienced. That's what this podcast is all about, where we follow the mantra that my late wife, Michael, gave us. She said, run to the hard, run to the hard places of our life and let God do an amazing work of healing so that ultimately we can run into other people's hard things in life and allow God to use us to help them heal right where they're at. And so, Crystal, without further ado, I'm going to welcome you to the show today and then ask you the first question right off the bat. How in the world did you stumble across our podcast? Hmm. Well, thank you. It's It's good to be here. I guess. Let's see. How did I stumble across this? Well just over a year ago. I lost my husband and I was in a you know sudden tragic space of grieving this particular podcast came to me as a link that my brother had texted me. I listened to your story, connected to it very personally, and really honestly loved to hear about Michael. Oh my goodness, she's so silly and fun and full of life. And that was a really fun connection to hear just the beauty of someone else's best friend and to just know and understand what it's like to lose a best friend. Yeah, we've talked quite a bit before we actually did this program and crazy similar story, like how God even brought us our best friends, right? And then some of the stories prior to being married to our best friends and some of the tragedies and things that we had both been through. And I know one of the clubs that you even mentioned when we first started chatting was that I'm not only in the widow club, but I'm in the divorce club, which it stinks, but we're in it. And go ahead and share a little bit, because I know that's one of the things that resonated as we were, we were talking about your story in particular, was some of the hard things that we went through to prepare us for next steps. Yeah. Also divorce before I met my husband that ultimately I'm widowed from. But yeah, I was, you know, young, college, and met my first husband who we quickly fell in love, got married, you know, while I was still actually in college, because he was a soldier in the army, had enlisted right after 9-11 and went in, got trained, and immediately deployed. And so that was honestly really, really difficult as a newlywed to live in a space of deployment in a great time of uncertainty with a lot of war. He was in combat and he was deployed off and on for four years, pretty much the first four years of our marriage. And when he came back, he served his final deployment and then came back to the United States. And he had at that point served his commitment with the U.S. Army. And then 9-11 anniversary came around again, and he just didn't come home one night. So he, yeah, he abandoned me. It was sudden where he kind of walked out and it was intense because he was kind of having a mental health crisis at the time. So I was doing whatever I could do to support him even though he was no longer communicating with me and no longer coming back to our house. I had been a Christian prior to that point, but I've never been challenged to this level of my faith really being what grounded me. We just did an episode recently where a friend of ours, father passed away, military guy, and I followed it up with with my own dad's story, who was a military guy and PTSD, military, is real. I know it's real. But can you just share a little bit? Like obviously coming home from four years of active duty, I don't mean to pry or anything, but what does that look like? this in years. Okay. While he... The first time I saw him after coming home, he was different. You know, he wasn't the same person I married. He literally came back a shell of a person of who he was. He almost looked gray, like he was a human form, but it's almost as though he was hollowed out and kind of empty and he was broken, no doubt. And I, of course, was, you know, and flashbacks that I wouldn't understand. Like I remember being in the car with him and there was just a cardboard box laying on along the side of the road and we were just driving and all of a sudden he like slammed on the brakes and swerved and it was scary. It was alarming and you know and it was a bot like it triggered um, and Yeah, there would just be many many nights. I'd get woken up out of a just a really deep sleep and he would be having night terrors and and things like that and Yeah, it was scary. There were scary moments and it was hard. I was so young and I just started learning about how I could best support. But yeah, it is something that changed our marriage. It changed him. It was hard to connect at times. You never knew when something would happen. I didn't want to bring it up to drag out hard stuff, but it just it's interesting to me that it keeps coming up. And as soon as you said the thing about the box, I remember a story from my mom years and years ago because my dad was a Vietnam vet and you know she told us some stories about some things that had happened in the middle of the night when she was sleeping or you know touching him or coming up on him when he was a nap and crazy stuff happens. Yeah, that definitely happened. Yeah, and I mean I wasn't necessarily gonna share it on here but... Sure, so abandonment just literally walks out. Yeah, I mean it I didn't see it coming. There was no warning to it. We weren't having marital problems. In fact, I felt like we were starting to reconnect and soar through cloud nine. We were starting to talk about growing our family. We had just bought a home. Like we were starting to finally live life and there were just so many good and exciting things ahead for us. So it was fast and sudden. I remember telling my best friend at the time when it happened that it felt like I had been hit by a semi because it was tragic. I couldn't prepare myself for it, but I was extremely worried about him. I remember getting in the car and driving around the city just looking for him, trying trying to figure out where he went and knowing he was probably struggling and yeah and and he wouldn't answer any of his phone calls and his family hadn't heard from him. So you're basically in limbo like you're married but you're not but but what do you do with that? You know I felt like I was chasing someone that was no longer there. And I was in this space of knowing what my marriage vow was and what my commitment was. And it wasn't reciprocated. So I felt like I was in a space of being married alone. It wasn't two people putting effort, it was one, but I also knew that he was sick and, you know, and just thinking about my vows and sickness and health and I knew he wasn't the same and I knew at that point he was starting to get help for his PTSD. And yeah, I mean, I just I really truly lean it to God big time because I, and I'm also getting help for PTSD at this point as a spouse. And I'm telling you all these like World War II and Vietnam spouses are like, honey, run. Oh no. And I was like, no, I stayed committed to my marriage and I stayed faithful and I stayed in that space and I just like dove deep into just really developing a relationship with God at that point. And just getting deeper and deeper and deeper with my, just with my personal relationship at that point with Jesus. And for a long time, I honestly, I did not feel I was released from the marriage. I felt like I was in the marriage and it was what God had me called to do. And I stayed in that season over a year of just being faithful and being there and our only source of communication that I hoped and figured he was getting because he of course wasn't answering any phone calls, but I would email him and I would just you know continue to let him know that I was here, I was faithful, I was praying, and that I was I was waiting and hoping he would come back and that we could restore our marriage. And I stayed in that space until just God spoke to me and moved in a really, really profound way of just affirmation after affirmation after affirmation of it was time for me to know the marriage was done. And so then at that point, I was the one actually that had to pursue the legal ending of the marriage and to pursue divorce. I know we've chatted about this before, but I said it on some really early podcasts about the fact that your brain can tell you that it's time, people can tell you that it's time, but God's the only one who can actually say it's time. And I remember, I don't always remember everything I've said on our podcast, but I remember talking about that the day that I woke up and God was like, you're released. And it was just this burden of, okay, I can move on now for the first time in a long time. So I resonate with that part of your story. But I also know there was very specific things that happened where God was like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Tell us about what happened. Yeah, well, and that's what mine was. I wake up one day. It was a series of, it was probably about a week, week and a half. And it first started with just a personal devotion that I did. And it was John 15 about Jesus pruning the vine and so that you can go on and bear fruit and be fruitful. And I, yeah, I read that in my personal devotion and it just, I don't know, it really resonated with me big time. And then later that Sunday, I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law in a different state. So I was a guest in their church and it was the exact same scripture. And so I was like, oh, no way, I'm back at my house. I go to my Bible study, and as I'm opening up, ready to have Bible study with friends, the person leading the Bible study was like, I had something else prepared, but as I was driving here, God just really kind of put a different direction on my heart. And so he said, if you guys would just open up your Bibles with John 15." And my mouth hit the floor. I was like, what? And then the following Sunday at my church, it was the same scripture. So when I had that same poignant scripture over and over, and just the power of the message behind it, I hit a space where I was just like, I get it, God. I hear you. I'm paying attention. And so then I just really leaned in and prayed pretty significantly around that scripture. And it was not long after that that I started pursuing legally the divorce of our marriage. I want to hit this point again, because I've said it multiple times on other podcasts that even though we may have a way out, the marriage is something that God made, joining two people together. And regardless of how bad the situation is, tearing a marriage apart is awful. And it rips you to the core. I tell people it hurts to the soul. It just does, because it's something that God puts together. And then I also followed up with, the only person who can release you from that marriage is God. And so to hear you go through, you know, that piece and understanding what I went through and then the whole healing process, I mean, I did some of my most of, I had more healing in those months after divorce. I don't know if you remember when I bought a little cabin up north and I would go up there every weekend and just work and pray and walk. I walked so much just asking God to do something in me. Because you know, we're both Christians and we just went through a divorce. And when you go through a divorce in your church, in your community and all that, it's just, the weight of it is awful. So healing, tell me a little bit about the healing process. I remember describing it to my dad one day about when you're pruning and I said, I'm not, it's like I'm pruning a branch, not a twig. You know, you think of what you have to do to get in and tear off a branch. It was like, dad, it hurts so bad. The pain of removing something so big from my life was just like a deep, deep, deep pain that I knew I wasn't going to get over shortly. And I wasn't going to get over without me putting a lot of work and effort into that. And I was in a season of feeling betrayed and feeling broken, feeling lied to, and just And knowing I needed to move forward with forgiveness and healing and that I wanted to be able to know what love was and to really truly learn what love was in its purest of purest forms. And so part of my space of healing was a journey of just diving deep into God's love and letting myself be loved in the purest form and learning from our Creator of what true love was. And just diving into that because I knew I was so young at this point. I mean, I'm in my 20s and I knew I wanted a life with someone, but I was in such a space of embarrassment and brokenness and you know it was just a lot of a lot of hard and I Wanted to not bring any of that garbage into a new relationship I wanted the trash dumped I wanted all of that done that space gone so that when I I was able to love again, that I was able to love in a righteous love and in a godly love. And so yeah, that was a big part of my healing journey, is just learning what God's love was, and to be loved. And, whew, such a healing season for me. And it really let me know who I was. No, that's good. Yeah, just how God really knew me and loved me. And I was able, probably for the first time in my life, know what my true identity was because it was how I saw myself in God's eyes. Sure. And that's a big deal. Dating, did you try dating at all? Were you out there looking around? No, I wasn't. Yeah, me neither. I wasn't. Like I was, I was broken and I had to walk through that journey of forgiveness. So I was not, I was not ready to date. I wasn't planning on dating until I felt like I had fully forgiven. And yeah, and that that was not a I forgive you and I'm through it. It was a okay today I'm choosing forgiveness and then the next day I wake up bitter and angry and so then I have to erase it and today I choose forgiveness and wake up you know That's powerful. That's, whew, if we could all grow to forgive, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and now, and I mean, here we are many, many, many years later, decades later, and we still don't have contact, but it's of my past. I'm not even angry. I'm not bitter. I really do. Yeah. So you know that I did the same thing. Wasn't going to date. I even said to the Lord, you know what? You're just going to have to drop somebody in my lap because I don't want to mess this up. I don't want to try that world. Like it just seems messy. Now you're in your twenties. The difference is, is, you know, when that happened to me, I was 50 years old. And the thought of dating at 50, there was no way. And so, I know you have a God moment when God brought you Brandon. And so, you've gone through a divorce, you've been abandoned, you're just going to have to do something for me. Tell me about that moment. Yeah, I'm in such a season of my life where I'm so in tune with God and I am like hearing Him and listening and all of that. So on Sunday, I hear from God. I know I'm in the space where I'm ready to maybe start looking for a guy, but also what does that look like? We're now in the space of online dating and just things are just weird. I was like, I don't even know how I'm going to find a guy. I was open to meeting somebody. So I'm a nurse, is my background. And there's a patient at work that is not young and he's getting ready to go to surgery. Sweet man. So I grabbed my warm blankets and I come and I'm starting to cover him up. And I was just like, you know, can I help you with anything? And he's, well, this is none of my business, but are you single? And I was like, what? Am I single? I mean, I'm in my twenties, late twenties at this point. He's in his 70s. I said, actually, I'm single. And he was like, because I've got this friend. And I'm like, how old is your friend? I'm like, I'm nowhere near your age. So it was it was really confusing. And then but his wife was sitting beside him. And she was like, hmm, okay, well, I'm in a space where, check, I know I want to meet somebody. So I gave him my number. It was the craziest, wildest thing I've done, thinking literally nothing of it. And the guy goes off to surgery I'm going with and the wife is, I'm going to go take care of this right now. And I'm like, what does that mean? Take care of what right now. Yeah, so the wife was Was Brandon's nurse and so she knew Brandon was working in the same hospital as me just a floor above me so she yeah went and gave him my number and I Went back to my office and and at this point I don't even know Brandon's a doctor and I go back to my office and I'm like guys You're never gonna believe what I did. I just gave my phone number to somebody and they were like, what? So yeah. So then they Google him and that's when I find out he's a doctor. And I'm like, guys, you've totally ruined this. Now I know what he looks like. I know who he is. He's not even going to call me, you know? So he called me, would you like to grab dinner? And I was like, I'm starving. That'd be great. So yeah, we ended up going to a restaurant and we got there honestly early and we stayed until the restaurant closed. It was an instant connection. That's awesome. Yeah, he was amazing. Michael and I ended up going to a coffee shop at one point and then we went again and we closed the place down. And so, man, those are awesome times. Yeah, like hours of conversation. So you've been through some stuff already and you're like, okay, God, there've been some healing. You've taught me who I am. You've taught me what love is. And then you get this random call from a doctor who you said you weren't going to date any doctors. I did, yeah. I mean when you're a nurse, you know a lot of doctors and I had zero interest. So are you like okay God, what are you doing? Is there this whole process going on? Are you ready to dive in? What does that look like? Yeah, well I mean funny thing is I have a lot of friends that are physicians and one of my friends, I had told him, I was like, nope, I don't want to date any doctors. I don't want to date any cops. You know, I don't know why I had this list of don'ts, but I did. And he was like, Crystal, that you cannot close out a career. He said, it's about the person. And I was like, you know, you're right. When I met Brandon, he was, he was different. Oh my goodness, so, so sweet and so kind and so loving. He was just a giver and he just cared for me. I mean, and we just instantaneously fell hard. We fell so hard for each other so fast. So, you know, I did make a list. And so when I met Michael, I was like, check, check, check, check, check, ah, maybe, you know, so that's how my brain works. Was it like that? Did you have a list or was it just Everything just seemed to connect and work Yeah, I mean I didn't have a list. I think I had a mental checklist somewhere of You know, God gives me Michael. You know, I wasn't necessarily looking for her. And I prayed for him to give me somebody if he was going to. And God gives you Brandon in this really unique, cool, sweet way, right? But I guess the question I have is, just because, you know, we've gone through brokenness, we've gone through some hard things, we've gone through divorce, and God gives us this person, is it easy or are there still some things that you had to work out with God going into a new relationship? Because I did. I mean, Michael was amazing, but I still had some things that I had to work through. Oh, right. Sure. Yeah. And I mean, it was easy to fall in love with Brandon. He was amazing, so amazing. It was so easy to fall in love with him, but you know, at this point I've been married, I've been divorced, and yeah, no, I really wanted to be sure that this is who God had and intended for me. And I mean, there were some things that I had to work through and, you know, things I question of, I don't know, you know, had he been my first marriage in my early 20s where I was, I'm not going to say young and dumb, but yeah, I'm going to say it. Yes. Like, I wouldn't have questioned it, but I'm no longer, I had a lot of conversation with God about is this who you have intended for me and What does this look like and and I felt just like I felt like I had to get that Release from me to leave my first marriage. It's almost like I had to get that Okay, and that this is my plan for you Affirmation, so you fall in love you get married And then what? We have kids immediately. Oh my goodness. Yeah, Brandon was older than I was. And I was, by the time we got married, I was crossed into the three-ohs. So yeah, she came really shortly after our first anniversary and then, ba-dum-bum, immediately get pregnant again with our second. So within our first two years of marriage, we had two little girls. Whew! Everyone said it was crazy and it for real was, but yeah, it was what we wanted. We wanted a family and God truly blessed us with our little family immediately. I mean, my friends all told me I was nuts. I married a woman with five kids. So whoo! It was a lot but that's a man man I wouldn't trade it for anything kids are amazing. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome Yeah, so your life takes another twist and So you marry the love of your life? It's amazing. You have two children immediately and Then the wheels start to fall off. Yeah, so newly married, baby one, hard pregnancy, hospitalization, baby two immediately, and that pregnancy from the get-go, crazy, they throw me on steroids. Poor husband constantly was like, my you know, so I was probably really lovely. I mean, I was always like, why? Yeah, he joked about that, like, for the rest of his life, his pregnant wife on steroids. That's hilarious. And after having two back to back and then our second, I just wasn't getting better. In fact, I was getting sicker. And I have these two tiny babies, not, you know, not kids that are self-sufficient at all. They're 100% dependent on me. And yeah, it wasn't hard to figure out that something was wrong. So we started just pursuing tests and seeking out specialists. And yeah, shortly afterwards, I found that I had lupus. So yeah. And for those who don't know, lupus is what? Well, lupus is an autoimmune condition and it can be very serious. It is, there's no cure and so there are medications and just things that you can do to help manage symptoms. But ultimately, your body is in a state of constantly attacking itself. And so that is, yeah, it can be very painful. And it's a pretty significant, of the autoimmune conditions, it's significant. I just, I had to learn how to parent different, but mostly I really honestly had to learn how do I get my life back? How do I fight this the healthiest way I can so it was I honestly was on a journey of just trying to figure out How to be super healthy, so I became crunchy too. I guess you could say That's hilarious. Yeah, tell me you know That time period was there a time where life got easier? I guess normal. How do you call that normal? You have lupus, but is there like a normal period of life? Well, I had to create a new normal and I had to figure out, you know, I had to make and to make some changes obviously and yeah, I found a new way to really rock lupus. I mean, honestly, I still say that to my doctor. I'm just like, I'm gonna be the healthiest lupus patient you've ever seen, you know, and I've done really well. So I've had seasons of, yeah, just being really healthy and really strong where most people, you know, they're kind of floored that I have such a serious illness because I'm running circles around other people, which is really good. Not to say I don't have setbacks, I do, but I've just learned to know my body and just to be really healthy. So here's a question for you, because I don't, you know, it's interesting to me who listens to our podcast, but would there be an opportunity if somebody was like, that's me, can you help me? Is that something you'd be interested in reaching out or letting somebody reach out and say this is what I've done? Okay, I kind of figured that but I was like I don't want to just throw it out there. Yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah, because I don't know a lot about lupus but what I hear is it can be really bad. It can be, yeah. Honestly, when I go into my doctor's office, I'm like, this is a depressing place, you know? And I like almost wanna hand out my phone number while I'm there and be like, call me. Okay, well good. Yeah, it is. There's ways you can do it really well. Well, people can, you know, they can email and reach out to us on this podcast. So I just thought I'd throw that out there. So you've made a new normal for yourself. You're a mama, you got two beautiful babies, you got a busy doctor husband, and you've got this period of time where you're just living life. But then 2020, which, you know, the whole world falls apart in 2020, but for you, 2020, I'm not even going to prerequisite, you just take us on that journey. Yeah, I had a different 2020 than most of the world had. Autoimmune and COVID did not mix well. So I mean, it hit me, it hit me hard. Took me weeks to get over it. I mean, I'm talking like six to eight weeks, I was probably in bed the first two for 20 some hours a day and started to get over just the whole respiratory portion. And then I became suddenly very, very sick to where we did not know what was going on. Again, thankful to be married to a physician, he triggered it immediately. But I went into acute liver failure and it was an emergency. And it was in a space immediately of life or death. And I just remember they immediately rushed me to surgery just to get a better picture of what was going on and just identifying and looking at my liver. And so, you know, I'm a young mom, I'm a wife, and it's so serious. They're talking about putting me on the emergency transplant list. They're trying to come up with a plan as fast as they can. And when I say as fast as I can, like I'm talking, this is all unraveling within days. And this is when literally the world is shut down and nothing, and I'm in the healthcare field, my husband's in the healthcare field and nothing is operating as we know it. And they're starting me on really, really hardcore drugs just to save my life. And they said it was a 50, 50, well, it was 49, 51. The 51 was in my favor, so I felt like I had. There's that. I had the odds were in my favor. So I had 51% chance of survival. And so it literally felt like I had a quarter in my hand and I got to flip it and whatever the results were was what was going to happen. So yeah, and when I say emergency, I'm talking like they were estimating two weeks. And how do you wrap your head around that? Sure. I just remember taking walks around my neighborhood with my husband hand in hand and us having intense, intense conversations about our kids, like the what ifs. But even more than the walks with my husband of just how serious this was, it was just my talks and my prayer and my silence with God at that point. Yeah, I could vision what would happen if I didn't make it. they were telling me, but getting the best relationship with God that I've ever had in my life. Like, I still have that relationship at this point with this heart. And so to just have an unexplainable, only God explainable kind of peace to walk through that moment. So you're here, so something happened. I'm the 51%. I'm the 51% and the 51% yeah God, God had other plans and yeah but it was. 2020's rough. Mm-hmm yeah. It's about 2021. Yeah so okay so I'm now on hardcore drugs, hardcore treatment. It's wrecking me. It took months and months and months to climb out of that hole to be well, to get better. There's still a pandemic going on and I'm very vulnerable. And so we had to kind of live in a little bit of isolation, but I'm at least beginning to sort of have a little bit of normalcy again. And then in 2021, the meds that are saving my life are now nearly about to take me out because they just became so strong that they started to shut my body down. And so I became kind of in this space of accidental over-medicated, and it just got me really sick. So it took me down again, and it made me like anemic, and I was fragile, and I was sick. I had no endurance to leave my home. If I was leaving my home, I kid you not, we had a wheelchair to push me around in it because I was crunchy, healthy, crazy kid, and I just amped it up because I was like, this is no joke. I've got to take my health serious. So, I became even crunchier. So, time periods 2020, 2021, you get sick basically again, super weak. Give me a time frame, like when do you start to come out of that? Because now we're into 2022. Yeah, it took about six to eight months to no longer be, yeah, so 2021, I'm with some family, we're playing a game and it's sort of like goal making for 2022. And I'm not joking, like they're pushing me around in a wheelchair. And I'm like, I'm going to run a 5k in 2022. That's my goal. And everyone's okay. And I was like, what? You don't believe me? And they're like, no. I said, I'm going to get better and I don't want to just be surviving. I want to be thriving. So I had this mental space of I was going to move into a space of thriving. And so I started with walking and I started building my strength back. And I did do that 5K, let me tell you. But yeah, so I went, it took a really long time, but yeah, it's like this constant battle of things trying to take me down and me being like, nope, not yet, not yet. I love that, yep. Yeah. No, that's good. Yeah, so You get healthy enough to run a 5k. Yeah, you're Kind of back to some kind of normal what happens? What happened? What else happens that year 2022? so I've had all of 2020 all of 2021 and now a portion of 2022 where I'm really sick. My kids don't get a mom, you know Life was just so almost on hold. And by 2022, the world's starting to wake up again. And so the girls got out of school and I was like, we're going to love summer. We're taking summer off. And it was, we had vacations and pool time and zoo time and and, you know, silly time, just living life to the fullest. I mean, when you're that sick for two years in your home, your home kind of gets a little disheveled, I guess you could say. So I- Well, with five kids, mine gets disheveled in a day, but- In a weekend, right? That's what I'm saying. Yes. So, well, yeah, with kids and when mom's on hold, and I mean, you think of the burden that the pandemic did on my husband, who was a physician, like he went from working too many hours to like ridiculous too many hours. So, yeah, so when he was, when he was home, we were, it was family time and play time. to the fullest and had full intentions to until the girls went back to school and then I was going to get serious and get reorganized and put life back together. And then Brandon got sick. I know there was a phone call because you and I have talked about this. We've both had the phone call, right? Yeah, and I'll never forget where I was what I was doing. I mean literally the house I was sitting in front of and I know that you have a phone call story. So it's 2022 You're you've run a 5k. You've had an amazing summer. You had family back like you are doing life again But then the phone call Yeah, well and And right before the phone call, Brandon and I, him and I had our first getaway since the pandemic, just the two of us, which is amazing. And while we're away, he's just not feeling right. And I'm just thinking, well, we're eating heavy food, we're going a million miles an hour because he was complaining of being tired and his stomach hurting. So I'm like, oh, that's so vague. And yeah, we're, of course you're tired. Like we haven't had any sleep and of course you're not feeling right. You're eating like garbage, you know? So I totally thought nothing of it. You're giving him the wife treatment. Yeah. Toughen up, buddy. No, but I mean, I just, I, I could justify his symptoms. And so then we're back home. I'm at work and well, first that first week when we were home, he was still just not feeling right and that we found out we were exposed to COVID. And I'm like, take your COVID test. That's why you don't feel well. Like you've got COVID again. And they didn't. And then he didn't have the flu and he didn't have RSV, all the things that were running rampant in September of September, October of 2022. Yeah. So he's home. I'm at work and he sends me a text and it's like when you get a minute you need to call me and so I sneak into my office and give him, you know call him back and he's we're in trouble and I'm like what and so he was just like my blood work is a wreck and There's another one of my colleagues in the office with me and I just remember like putting my head down and my hands over my face and just trying to process what that even meant. Having no idea what was about to be my journey, but knowing the significance of something major is about to happen. Yeah I don't yeah I don't envy you I don't envy anybody who's had to take that call but I remember getting it and you just it's hard to even explain to people what happens to your brain and your body at that moment it's like you're almost living outside of your body looking in on all these things that are going on. I don't know how else to describe it. Yeah. But I know you experience that looking in from the outside like what is coming next? How do we do this? And so yeah. Take us on that journey a little bit because you have to find out first of all what it is that he has and then what it's gonna take to try to fix it. Yeah, this was routine blood work that picked up on, uh-oh. And he, yeah, so from us having that, we made a call, immediately got on, got an appointment for the Mayo Clinic. We got in touch with the James. And within days, he had a bone marrow biopsy scheduled. We knew immediately that he would need a bone marrow transplant. It flipped on the switch and it was an out-of-control, wild ride. And so from the time he just started not feeling well, it was almost immediately he was hospitalized because his body was just raging and going out of control. And so they were trying to, as fast as possible, get him ready to go to transplant. We spend the next almost five straight months living at the hospital. So let me ask you, what did you find out it was and what's the treatment? Why is he in the hospital? Yeah, so he was diagnosed with a blood cancer, myelofibrosis. His treatment and chance of survival was a bone marrow transplant. It's intense, but his body was becoming so sick so fast, so rapidly that it hospitalized him nearly immediately. I remember you telling me that one of the moments you connected with our story was when we talked about the James Cancer Hospital. Yeah. And that's where Brandon ended up, correct? Yeah. Yeah, we lived there, I mean, for months, five, six months. We were there almost every single day. And and when you have young children, he's in the hospital. We had to bring in our village. And, you know, I mean, my my family stepped in in a huge way. My parents and my sister actually came in and lived with us for a little bit of time too. You cannot do something of this magnitude alone and it wasn't a, oh you're in the hospital for a week and we're gonna send you a few gift cards and make you a meal. This was months and months and months and yeah I mean we just had so many people providing food for us and just praying for us and loving on us, but it truly, but had someone not been able to live with us while this was going on Yeah, I couldn't even like my brain is starting is struggling with 2020 you go down right weeks and months. You literally almost die because your liver fails. They give you a two-week time period like this could be over with. And then you get a little bit healthy, get sick again in 2021. And then you get to 2022, you get healthy enough to run, to have vacation for the first time. And my brain can't stop thinking about your girls like oh, yeah year after year and now it's 2022 And Brandon's sick like I I know the listeners are thinking the same thing like what in the world But then you mentioned your village and you mentioned your family and and I just I want to throw this out there folks if you're not, hmm. If you don't have a village, you need to get one. Is that fair? Oh, 100%. If you don't have a church, you got to get one. Yeah. I could not do this alone. You can't do life alone. You can't. You've got to be in community. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just I'm struggling to process year after year after year of you know what it's taking to help raise kids and keep a home going and all the things you're going through. Man. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean I kept thinking that too because I do a green smoothie every day and my mom would wake up super early to make my green smoothie because I'm so exhausted just trying to get my butt to the hospital to care for Brandon for the day. But I remember having moments where I thought of that, of how sick I had been, where Brandon's doing everything he can to care for me, and here I am having to run the run. And this felt like a marathon where I was just so grateful for my health and how strong I was and how healthy I was that it was my turn to pull that cart. He had pulled when I was sick and now here I am as he's riding in the cart and I'm pulling it, caring for him. I'm just thankful and grateful for my health and my own strength and my own body because had it happened, you know, just nine months prior, we would have both been down. And yeah. So Brandon's in the hospital. He's there for a long stay. I remember when they were giving us the prognosis for Michael and they said if she survives this, that's the next step was bone marrow transplant. And so I'd already started learning about it and stuff like that. But you're in it. You're there. It's months and months. Just kind of walk us through that. Yeah, I mean it's a it's a state of isolation because with a transplant what they essentially do is kill your immune system and get you down to zero, literally. They get your cells to zero and then they give you the transplant cells. And so because of it, you're isolated in a locked unit in the hospital and there's no children. So our children are not able to visit. I was going to say, so just to be clear, that's no visits. You're it. No visits. It's pretty much me and me only. And so even though Brandon and I were together, we were broken as a family. Thank goodness for FaceTime, you know, we did FaceTime and things like that. But yeah, like my kids were already living without their dad. And I was living without my kids kind of because I would spend the entire day in the hospital, you know, 12 to 16 hour days. It depended on how sick Brandon was those days. And then I would come home and I would sleep in the same bed with my girls because it was our only time to be together is when we were all asleep together and yep did it day in and day out for months. You and I in our conversations did the math and we were basically Michael had passed away and you were in the James just shortly after starting your journey in the same building, in the same facility. We didn't know each other. In fact, I knew your brother. That's kind of how we connected with the podcast. But it's just interesting how many people are walking these roads in the same building, in the same facility, and could be next door, could be a floor up, a floor down and for me it just it's really opened my eyes to how much hard people are going through. Does that make sense? Oh yeah. And I know that Brandon starts to get a little better. It's starting to take effect. Yeah, yeah, no, he did. He got to transplant, got through the transplant, and we finally actually got to go home from the hospital. And my girls were coming on spring break, and they said they had no school. And we sent my parents home, we sent my sisters home, and just doing our routine doctor visits. And at that point, our doctor, again, it's a blood work thing, and she comes in and she's like, I think you're relapsing. And we're like, what does that mean? What? And because we're in a mental space of we've done it, we've beat this, he's just got to get stronger. And we were kind of just trying to recover from this five months of crisis and chaos and disruption within our lives. And it was exhausting. So then to hear about relapse, and it was again, days where he just spiraled and the floor fell loose again. We're back in the hospital. We're back getting treatment. And at this point when they say relapse, yeah, to be in a rock and a hard place of something where you think you would just beat it, it just, you feel like you had the rug pulled out from under you and you don't even know how to process the information that you're hearing and here you're back in the hospital and I can see the change in the faces on the staff of, you know, you know how serious it is because their faces, I mean, and at this point they know us, we've lived with them for five months and they love us, you know, and they're just, they're devastated. So, yeah, the word relapse was the beginning of the end for us. And then we met with a physician on a Monday. They had a new team come through. So the Sunday doctor left and on Sunday, they were actually talking about how they were possibly going to discharge us and that we would wait to see what Monday's blood work showed on whether we would be able to go home or not. So we're like in a mental space of, okay, we might get to go home. And Monday, it was kind of late morning, the doctor comes in and she, she comes in and she uses my husband's name, she always called him Dr. B. And she's, you know, I've been taking care of you a long time and she says I want to show you something and So she showed us the trends and at that point She said I just want you to know that where the disease is now it is not survivable and Yeah, that was It's probably the hardest thing I've ever heard. Just not knowing, not knowing how much time you had, how much, you just don't know anything, you just know he's going to die. And having to wrap your head around that, but also then having to communicate that with your family and yeah, they, they dropped the rules and they said go get your kids. They let us bring the kids in. That was hard. But then, yeah, knowing at that point you just have moments to get almost like your affairs in order. Yeah, I know. Of, you know, making sure you're prepared for what's about to happen. they were going to give him another round of chemo because they wanted to buy him some time so that we could be with family. And I didn't know what buying time meant, but every time they had given him chemo in the past, it lasted about a month. So I'm like thinking, we'll have a month, he'll come home. Well, you know, I'm like, my head is just like thinking forward of what we're about to face of a hospital bed in our house and like what that's going to look like. And no, I mean, we had hours from the time we knew he wasn't going to survive until he actually passed. Like he got sick really quick. There was no buying time. And yeah, I mean, we went into the ICU and once we got transferred to the ICU, he was, he'd have moments of consciousness, but he was asleep most of the time. And so it was at that point, I just climbed up in the bed with him. And I just laid beside him. I held him and I was just right near him to be, you know, I wanted my ear to be, or I wanted my face to be near his ear, or I could just tell him over and over that I loved him. Just how good of a husband he was and how good of a dad he was. And I just would kiss his face over and over. And yeah, I mean, I stayed there in the bed with him, holding him. Until he stopped breathing. And then within seconds I felt his heart stop, like I hit my head on his chest. I just know that that was the moment. Life was never going to be the same. No. Yeah, it was different. So people might wonder why in the world would I do this interview and you know you and I have shared some moments about our stories and what people may not know is that just just six months before Brandon passed away. I was holding Michael on the same floor and you and I have talked if it wasn't the same room it was really close by and we held our love of our life until they took their last breath. And it might seem weird for somebody to wonder why we would share this connection or this story together but it's definitely a connection. And God gave us these people to love and to cherish and to take care of. I'll never forget the first time you sent us a message just thanking us for the podcast. There's that whole weird part, you know, we're widows and widowers. We're single. It's you know, how do you interact with male, female, you know, it's just weird. But I'll never forget you sent this message saying thank you for what you're doing and I'm proud of you for being so open and vulnerable. Our stories are so similar. You just can't even imagine how similar they are. And I gave you the proverbial, I'm so, so sorry for your loss and I'm sorry for what you've had to endure. And yes, I would love to hear your story. He messaged back and he said, He said, I've had a lot of tragedies in my life, but I don't regret any of them because with every single tragedy, my relationship with Jesus gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And I remember thinking, I've been through some stuff. I just remember thinking, man, God, what in the world? But then you said something that just kind of blew me away. You said, I can do hard things. and the connection of my wife saying run to the heart and run to people's heart and here you are telling me the hardest things you've ever gone through and and that you have your own mantra and I guess My question is crystal at the end of the day Where does that strength come from and where is your hope? I mean, I don't think you have that hope without a relationship with Jesus. I mean, that is your, that's your anchor. That is your foundation. That is your hope. That's mine. I'd been in this space before with when my first husband suddenly left. I knew this hard walk. I knew the pain it was and the intenseness it was, and I knew to keep walking forward. It's like when it first happens, it's as though you're surrounded by darkness, but you can see this pinpoint of a light ahead, and you just start walking towards that light. And over time, it gets easier and easier, and it gets lighter and lighter. But that light is truly, you know, like your faith in God, your steadfastness, that's where the peace is, that's where your calm is in the chaos, is where your strength comes through. This time I knew it was, whoo, not just me that had to get through it. I had to get two little girls through it, you know, and just taking their hands and walking them through, teaching them. You know, it's as though I was like, I know this, I got this, I'm going to teach you. And I don't know why God put me through the first experience, because it was hard. But when I came to the second, it was as though I was able to be the teacher and teach two little girls of the goodness of God that you know bad things happen and hard stuff happens and suffering is real. But even amongst that, the goodness of God is still there and you just got to focus on it and look to it and follow that light and just keep walking forward. That's the space we're in. I mean, and I said that to you because it's the wording I use to my kids every single day. Girls, we can do hard things. This is so hard. We're gonna get through this day. We're gonna get through this hour. We're gonna get through this moment. And it's okay to be sad. And it's okay to cry. And it's okay to hurt. And I'm crying because mom loved dad. You know, I just I didn't hide the fact that I was broken and ripped up and tore up inside. I didn't hide the fact that I knew I needed to have help from others. But I also didn't hide the fact that God is so good. And that God is with us and loves us and has not left us. I can I know people will understand more of why I would want to share your story because not everybody has that same This is hard stuff. And there's days I don't want to do this. This is hard. And I know when I asked you, would you be on our podcast? You're like, I don't know if I could do that. And I'll never forget your, you know, you said, well, I prayed a couple of days about it. And I think, I think maybe I could do it. I was like, okay, like this is hard stuff. And I even pre-warned you and said, man, the first couple of times I did this, I just, I went to bed, you know, I just try, you know, reliving these moments, but I can't help but go back to my own wife's mantra and even your mantra. Like God gives us, God allows us to go through these things And most of us get stuck in this place of why? Why does God allow us to go through these things? But having lost our spouses There's something that became very very apparent in that God doesn't God doesn't God doesn't waste anything That he doesn't want to point back to him and point people to him And I know in your own life that this tragedy is awful But in the end you even being willing to come on and do this is that God is still the same. He's still good. He's still faithful. And He wants to spend eternity with us. And our job is to point as many people to Him because this life we have shown, this life is short. 43 we're all gonna die. It's just this, it's fact. We just happen to be married to people that it happened soon and and we are we are gonna end up there and we're all gonna end up before God and we're all gonna end up having an answer of what we did with our lives and so I know just getting to know you that your love for God is unwavering, and we are so proud of you and grateful that you would be willing to do this. So Crystal we want to help people understand that there is beauty for ashes. That God does love us and he still has a plan for us. So you talked about the goodness of God. You said it a couple times. I always use the word faithful, that he just continues to be faithful, but you said the goodness of God and I love that Because I know that God's not done with you. He's not done with me and that they're still good. I Heard a rumor I Heard a rumor that he's so good that you even have been on a date date? I'm just asking the question. Yes, that's truth. It's not a rumor. God is good and He's done it again and just dropped an amazing man in my lap and So life continues Right in the middle of hard

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