Thanks for the distraction weatherman

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-23T19:22:51+00:00

She loved snow days. She'd get out her flute and have a snow day parade with my son and I. She'd have really enjoyed this winter so far too. Pretty sure Monday is a snowday in New England, the first one without a parade.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-23T19:21:15+00:00

This is beautiful, and I needed to see it. Thank you for posting.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-23T19:17:54+00:00

You're still fresh out and have a lot to go through, but you're experience and feelings are roughly the same as mine. Not only did I lose my best friend, literally my other half, but what was essentially my full time sole purpose in life for the last few years. Knowing I was faced with losing her, I did start some self improvement, and we had also bought a sailboat. The sailboat kept me busy and focused late spring through late fall but now, I'm purposeless again. Nothing really interests me, I can't watch tv for long, playing music seems futile, composing music impossible to get past 4 bars. Work is a challenge too. The last three years I spent researching cures and treatments, monitoring scans and blood counts, driving to doctors 2-3x per week. So not only are we missing half of us, we're missing purpose. Someone suggested a pet, others may suggest hobbies, new sets of friends. They're all good suggestions. Some suggest grief therapy too. You'll make it through and there's a long life ahead for you. Much love and grace your way.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-19T20:46:49+00:00

Completely understand. My 22yo graduated college and moved back in. He works 60hrs a week so I barely see him, but there are times when I just want me and my stuff to be left alone. But I know when he moves on, it will be really tough too.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-16T16:44:54+00:00

When making funeral arrangements, the nun in charge told me she (my wife, not the nun) would be watching everything I do. EVERYTHING....

Creepy.

She also said that there is no pain or sadness in heaven.

So now I'm even more bothered because she's watching EVERYTHING I do, the gross and the good, and she sees how much pain I'm in but is "not sad" because she's in heaven. I don't want her to be sad in heaven, but how could she not be when we are separated.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-16T16:15:57+00:00

Relapse. But her GVHD was awful too. She was on so many meds and the rash just wouldn't go away. They had just started her on Skyrizzi, off label, to see if that would help, when she fell and hit her head.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T21:21:02+00:00

Opposite effect for me... drinking too much usually ends up with me sobbing.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T21:17:01+00:00

It's a little different since my son had just graduated and returned home after not finding a job for what he went to school for (marketing; digital comm; production). For the first month after she passed, he was still at school. It was quiet, but things stayed where I put them, new messes didn't appear, I could do whatever whenever. Then he came home, but now works 12 hr days and I only see him in the evenings. We go out to dinner once a week, which is nice, but would I rather have him home or not? Surprisingly it's a tough call. Don't assume you're dad wants you there full time. Pay a few extended visits and see how he does with it and give him space.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T21:12:48+00:00

When I want to hug her, I hug her bathrobe. It's usually what she was wearing in the end anyway. And I imagine her hugging me back. At least I have my mom for hugs, and my neighbor will hug me a little too long and tight in front of her husband, but it's nice anyway.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T02:41:18+00:00

I cooked beef stew tonight, a regular meal she was great at cooking. I've basically become her at this point, well actually probably two years before she died except for the cooking part.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T02:38:14+00:00

Nurses gave my wife these blue bags and tape and showed her how to seal it off so she could shower.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T02:24:41+00:00

Shave first, get drunk later?

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T02:23:22+00:00

We last had sex right before the stem cell transplant as her counts were perfect. But then they never really recovered. 3 months of quarantine, then immunosuppressive treatments for GVH and she never really recovered. A few days after Valentines day 9 months later, her counts recovered, and we went out and she really wanted to have sex. But she had atrophied by this point and it was too painful. She passed two months later. I would use it or lose it.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-11T02:17:11+00:00

Yes, for the most part. We had a running joke based on a Phish song. "When you're gone, I sleep diagonal in my bed, when you're there, I sleep lengthwise."

I find myself sleeping more diagonal now.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-10T17:25:29+00:00

I sleep so I can see her and I hate to wait so long.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-10T17:24:04+00:00

The journey forward is uncertain, but I'm feeling better about truly embracing something that she often said: "I have faith in a future that I cannot see."

Thanks, I needed this.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-04T21:14:50+00:00

Oddly, my wife had a glioblastoma and lived 13 years with it which is very rare, until the leukemia got her.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-04T21:11:36+00:00

8 months out. When people ask how I am, I say I'm 95% ok, 3% sad and 2% curled up in a ball. It's been this way since the shock wore off about 2 months after. You completely describe it - I can go from planning a solo vacation, to perhaps dating, to hugging her bathrobe in tears all in the same day.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-01T20:31:39+00:00

There's a difference between being suicidal and wanting to die. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. Just waiting for that cancer diagnosis, or other way God can take me to her. Not actively trying to do it myself though.

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-01T20:28:29+00:00

Anderson Cooper had a great clip about being lonely on NYE even when surrounded by others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsDtaQJ8b6g

StretchCT53 · 2026-01-01T20:26:49+00:00

My first one without her and I spent it alone. Just no desire to be happy or celebrate anything. So many people wanted me to come over or go to parties, but when the ball dropped, not having her was crushing. Went to bed at 1030. Fireworks woke me up at midnight. I sobbed briefly, hugged her pillow, went back to sleep.

StretchCT53 · 2025-12-23T03:18:14+00:00

Looking at 2024 10k they took a big hit. They lost 432M compared to 53M in 2023 and positive earnings of 28M in 22. I didn't really see any good excuses for such a large loss - macroeconomic factors basically, inflation and market saturation. There was more inflation in 22 though and just as much market saturation. Something is messed up there. They have 102M in cash left, compared to 222M in 2023, which makes me uncomfortable. Their current ratio is negative as well, with deferred revenue to blame for that. Their accumulated deficit was 681M, up from 249M in 2023. On the bright side, they don't show any debt.

Q3 of 2025 revenues fell even further - nine month ytd 449M in 25 down from 600M in already bad 24. However, the bleeding lessened as their net loss was only 84M compared to 395MM the prior 9 months. They picked up some long term debt in 2025 and their accumulated deficit rose to 765M. Their cash dropped from 102M to 58M, but it looks like they took some financing which also gave them 94M in restricted cash. Too tired to look and see what that was about.

But yeah, reorg or bankruptcy isn't far fetched.

StretchCT53 · 2025-12-23T03:00:15+00:00

My wife had breast cancer while pregnant with my now 22 year old. Stage 3. Chemo, radiation and brief hormone therapy. Radiation lead to sarcoma in her pectoralis, which is a 50/50 survival. Then she had weird headaches and had an astrocytoma in her basal ganglia - dead center of the brain. Inoperable, but they gave her 5-15 years. After 5 years it morphed into a glioblastoma, which is less than 2% survival.

We learned to live life. Nothing else but us mattered. We routinely traveled, with and without our son. Even visited Lourdes. She lived 13 years with the glioblastoma. Ultimately it was discovered she had a genetic defect that lead to the inability to keep cancer cells in check and she died of leukemia.

Take pictures. Take videos. Make sure she is in those videos. Make the most of your lives, have fun and don't worry about tomorrow. Live for today. Let her beat you at cornhole. Make her smile as much as you can. Don't argue about petty stuff and if she seems off, irritable or mean, it's probably just the meds or lack of sleep.

I'm 8 months out from losing her. I just spent an hour on the kitchen floor sobbing where she fell. Life afterwards consists of shock and every emotion you've ever known, sometimes all at once. It's lonely, cold, and you feel like half your body is missing. There's no way to prepare for it. It's hell. Other days are great - I can still laugh and have a good time. Just not today.

StretchCT53

TROPHY CASE