Profoundly Changed

It has taken some time, but I am now ready to share with you that my amazing husband, Bob Rose, went to be with Jesus on October 20, 2020. This has changed my life in so many ways that it feels like I will forever be finding my footing again. One of the early things I heard myself say over and over again is, “You marry someone, because you can’t imagine your life without them. Then, when you have to really do life without them, it’s unimaginable.”

Because I am learning so much more about grief, I am taking a break from the School Counseling focus in the blog to focus my attention on helping others in grief as well as providing information for counselors helping others in grief. First, we will begin with telling the story of that amazing man.

He fought the disease for five years, and I was convinced that we were going to win this side of Heaven. We were going to get to be that old married couple in rockers on the porch. Well, really, those rockers are on the deck, but you get the picture. We had actually bought matching navy blue cracker barrel rockers, because he was a NAVY veteran. We were ready.

The fight began in the Summer of 2015. We were sitting on the beach when he called my attention to a rash that had become very infected over the course of our time on Madeira Beach. We thought it was just a reaction to the salt, sand, or something in the air that he wasn’t used to. Yet, it didn’t clear up when we returned home. This started our trek back and forth to Cleveland Clinic, the local Norton’s Brownsboro Hospital, and so many doctor’s appointments and surgeries that I lost count. It was first simply Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), a chronic skin condition. Although that was annoying, it wasn’t terminal.

Yet, over the course of time, the HS caused a rare disease called Amyloidosis, which was first misdiagnosed as Sarcoidosis in July 2019 as it was centralized in the heart. He received an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator), which acted as both defibrillator and pacemaker, and he was placed on steroids to address the Sarcoidosis. We thought we were out of the woods.

He loved his job at Louisville Gas and Electric and continued to work, because he was also convinced we were going to kick this thing. Then, in November 2019, the skin infection caused four surgeries over Thanksgiving week. Our children cooked Thanksgiving dinner and brought it to the hospital. I am so grateful for that, because that was our last Thanksgiving together. This was the beginning of the end, but neither of us saw it.

As I said, in order to help my healing and hopefully help others through sharing my story, I am taking some time away from the School Counseling emphasis in the blog to focus on my own grief. Through my counseling, I have learned that you must walk through grief in order to heal. I hope my story helps others.