A Single Step ~

The longest journey starts with a single step ~

Charlie finished his last chemo treatment in May 2008. In June, he sat me down and said we had to come up with "plan B." Charlie shared with me, that it was killing him to think that if something was to happen to him, what was going to happen to me. He wanted me to go back to school and get my high school diploma, learn a trade and get a job that would able me to support myself. The thought of that scared me to death; not to mention that it also made it all the more real for me, the possibility of losing my husband. I enrolled in the Adult School Program August 27, 2008 and got my diploma in May of 2009. The next part of plan B was that I needed to learn a profession quickly. I enrolled in the Phlebotomy program in September of 2009, at Gurnick Medical of Arts and took the NCCT this last January and passed. I have waited for my license to go through processing and it finally came in the mail this last week. I am now applying for a job. I walked into this thinking it would never happen. I felt it would be much worse to not try, than to have failed with trying. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

As I look back and think about how scared I was enrolling in the Adult School Program and now to the present, it has felt like a never ending whirl wind. I can't believe I am in the last phase of our plan B. I think about what it has cost me; friendships and not being able to be there for friends and some family members. On the flip side to what it has cost me, what I have gained; some self-confidence, and giving my husband the security of being assured I will be able to take care of myself if something happens to him; that peace he needed... and I suppose, I needed too.