Remembering my Miss Vicki

By Thomas Crochetiere

This is a husband's heartfelt story about his wife and their journey during the last year of their life together. You will learn firsthand, how they embraced some of the most memorable and cherished moments of their marriage. You will also learn how they handled some of the difficulties presented to them and how they dealt with some of the worst times of their life. Together, they leaned on each other to provide a common strength but in the end, he had to rely on her incredible strength just to get through each day and eventually, minute by minute.

You will experience some of the many emotions they faced throughout the year and you will be able to "feel" life as they did. It is not the intent of this story to depress you or leave you with the impression that life may have little meaning. It is a story of a husband's love for his wife, and more importantly, it is a story of a wife's selfless love for her husband and everyone around her.

The sharing of this story is for you to get to know this amazing woman. This is Vicki Crochetiere's story, a story about my "Miss Vicki".

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456602543

Book preview

Crews.

Chapter one

An Introduction to Vicki

My name is Thomas Crochetiere and this is a story of my wonderful wife Vicki Lynn Crochetiere. The majority of this story will focus on our marriage together during the year of our Lord, 2010. 2010 was without a doubt, a roller coaster ride with extreme highs and extreme lows. We were literally blessed with some of the happiest times of our marriage, with the year ending in the worst.

Vicki and I first met on December 31, 1983 at 8:35 PM. It was at a New Year’s Eve Party given by Ben, a mutual friend, where I first laid eyes on her. I remember this well as I was immediately taken with her. It was love at first sight for me. Prior to this, I had never believed in love at first sight, until it happened to me.

I introduced myself to Vicki and we spoke all evening. A couple of people even commented that we made a cute couple and asked how long we had been dating. I knew that evening that I would someday marry Vicki.

The next day, I told my mother (Barbara) I had met the woman of my dreams and I planned to marry her someday. My mother just laughed as she did not believe I would marry this girl. Later that day, I asked Vicki to go out on a date and thus began our amazing journey together.

From the beginning, I often called Vicki, Miss Vicki. I do not know exactly why but it just seemed fitting. I immediately had a great deal of respect for her, as she was very special. In a way, I thought of her as a queen and deservedly needed a title. Since she did not object, the title stuck.

Vicki and I have one son, Jason who married Rachel and gave us our first beautiful grandchild, Delilah Rose. Jason then left and moved to Florida where he met Krystal. They gave us our next grandchild, Zane. Delilah’s mother had another child with Ray, which brought Timmy into our lives. Jason then moved back to California and met Sabrina who has two children, Aloni (Loni) and Lincoln. Even though Timmy, Loni and Lincoln were not our grandchildren by birth, Vicki and I considered them every bit our grandchildren and Vicki very much adored all of her grandchildren.

Vicki and Delilah quickly grew to have a very special bond together. As Delilah was growing up, it became obvious she was taking after her Grandma Vicki and was learning all of her habits, both good and bad. Vicki and Delilah arguably had a closer bond than Delilah had with either of her parents. It brought everyone pleasure to see Vicki and Delilah interact together as they seemed inseparable.

We were very fortunate to have had Delilah visit us so often. She loved going with us to visit family and friends, go on day trips or camping. We also introduced her to Disneyland and had many memorable trips together. Vicki and Delilah had many girls only trips to Disneyland as well. Delilah often told us Disneyland was her second favorite place. When we asked her what her first favorite place was, she would simply say Grandma Vicki’s house.

Life was good for us as we were fortunate to have had the opportunity to take our motor home out on a regular basis for weekend camping trips. On average, we would go camping 14-times each year. We have always enjoyed spending time with family and friends going camping, off-roading, cruising, hiking, traveling and to the sprint car races.

Throughout our marriage, we had taken three cross-country trips, and even drove all the way to Alaska. Vicki and I had been to all 50-states and most of the Canadian provinces. Vicki had a fear of flying and we saved our collection of the state of Hawaii for the last, flying there in 2004.

In late 2009, we joined four other couples (Lew and Bonnie, Tom and Gayle, John and Lisa and Darryl and Chris), took a 14-day cruise to Hawaii, and had a wonderful time. Vicki got seasick easily and wore motion sickness patches to help combat it, taking a few days to get her sea legs.

During 2010, we had stepped up our camping, going out 21-times! We often went camping with three different groups. We had our off-roading group of friends, our just hanging out and traveling together group of friends and our family group. On occasion, we would combine one or more of these groups and it could prove to be interesting at times.

Though we had our share of bad luck over the years, our marriage was solid and our health seemingly good. We had shared so many happy times and were fortunate to have such wonderful friends and family. Who could ask for anything more? This was all about to change soon.

Vicki and Delilah (age 2) doing the Mowgli walk

Delilah, Zane, Loni, Timmy and Lincoln

Chapter two

Something Was About To Go Terribly Wrong

Vicki had her last mammogram in 2008. She had her most recent annual checkup with a breast exam in July 2010. With the exception of her high cholesterol level and her only remaining kidney not being in perfect condition, she had received a good bill of health. Vicki had no signs or symptoms of anything being wrong, up to and including September 7, 2010.

On September 8th, she awoke with a slight pain to her right breast and she then discovered a small lump in that breast. She called me at work, told me her Mastitis had come back and she would go to see the doctor that day. Vicki was not very concerned as she has had Mastitis before and the normal course of treatment was to take antibiotics and the Mastitis would go away within a week. The lump she discovered did not appear to be hard but squishy like she had before.

Vicki went to the doctor’s office that day and the Nurse Practitioner agreed with her that it appeared the Mastitis had returned and Vicki was given a prescription for antibiotics and sent on her way. Vicki had wanted to buy a new car for a couple of years but had held off until my work situation appeared to be stable. During her lunch break, she test drove a new Dodge Journey and loved it. She called me at work and asked that I stop by the dealership on my way home to take it for a test drive. She told me she wanted to purchase it that evening. Needless to say, she bought the car that evening and was extremely happy. It brought great joy for me to see her face as she had been very patient and had not bought a new car in several years.

As the week progressed, Vicki noticed the Mastitis was not going away as it normally did and that the lump was getting larger and starting to hurt more. When the antibiotics ran out, she went back to the doctor’s office on September 16th and saw her doctor (Dr. Edith) this time.

Dr. Edith told her she did not think this lump was Mastitis and told Vicki she needed to go to the Comprehensive Breast Center right away for further exams. Her doctor had tried to get Vicki in that afternoon but they were booked solid and were not able to see Vicki until the next morning. Vicki went in the next morning on the 17th and had several tests run including a mammogram and an ultrasound.

Vicki received a call from the Comprehensive Breast Center the next day advising her they found lumps in her right breast and in her right lymph nodes. They scheduled her to come back on the 22nd for a biopsy. At this point, the main lump in Vicki’s right breast had doubled in size and was hurting even more.

I am sure you can well image all of the thoughts that were running through our minds at this time. Knowing that if lumps were found in her lymph nodes this is normally not a good sign. We were trying to remain positive and upbeat and we were not going to let this start to destroy us before even knowing exactly what this was. Vicki told me she did not want to tell anyone about this until we had more information and answers.

On the 22nd, Vicki went into the Comprehensive Breast Center for the biopsy. I met her there after work and then followed her home. On our way we met and had dinner with our friends Darryl and Glenda, at which time I told them what was happening. Vicki later told me she did not want everyone to know until we got the results back from the tests.

Vicki and I spoke at length about the possibilities. My gut instinct told me this was cancer and I told her I was scared. She told me she wanted to let Jason and Rachel know, and she would tell her boss. She said her work needed to know because she might be taking a lot of time off for tests. I began to get tears in my eyes and we stopped talking about it.

From this point on, I kept a journal of everything that had to do with Vicki’s condition and how it affected our lives and those around us.

Chapter three

The Battle

September 23rd

Vicki was on the phone talking to Glenda when the Comprehensive Breast Center called. She ended the call with Glenda promising to return her call. Vicki then called the Breast Center back and was asked to come in at 2:30 PM for the results. When Vicki called Glenda back and she offered to drive Vicki down to the appointment. Vicki agreed and said she would ride back home with me after the appointment.

Glenda drove Vicki to the Comprehensive Breast Center and waited with her until I arrived before she went home. I met Vicki at the center and we were immediately taken into an exam room where there was just an exam bed and no chairs. We thought this is a good sign, that if it was cancer they would have brought us into a room where we could both sit down with tissues nearby. We saw no tissues visible in the exam room.

The nurse (Teresa) came in and said the doctor would be in shortly. A minute later, the doctor