This is a story about my wife’s fight with breast cancer. We first got the news in December 1992, that the tumor in Barbara’s right breast was cancerous. At that time I was a Colonel in the U.S. Army serving as an instructor at the Command and General Staff College located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Barbara was a housewife and the mother of two sons, Thomas Robert, and Jason Michael. Both of the boys were students at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence. Leavenworth by coincidence just happened to be my hometown. As such my parents, two brothers and two sisters all lived in or around the Kansas City area.

When I received the phone call from the surgeon that did the biopsy on Barbara’s breast that confirmed my greatest fear, I immediately sought out as much information about the disease as possible. I searched the libraries and found several books written by women about their own experience and the experience of other women, but I found nothing written by a man. It was at that point that I thought that I should keep a daily journal that one day I might turn into a book to help other men facing the same challenge. The journal became my focal point for each day I chronicled all the events from December 1992 till Barbara’s death in August 1994. I found that the journal became very important during the almost two years of battling cancer for a couple of reasons. First it contained all the information about the time and amounts of drugs that Barbara had taken. This was very helpful to attending doctors because Barbara had several bouts with infections that landed her in the hospital. With the information at hand, I could easily tell the doctors what the needed to know. Secondly, the journal provided me with a place to write out my thoughts and emotions. At the time I looked at it as routine just to keep track of events, but in retrospect I find that it was a way of me releasing a lot of vented up pressure.

In the chapters that follow you will see the role that I played during our fight with cancer. I became the task manager and caregiver. I made all decisions concerning the treatment of the disease. If the information in this book can help someone who has a spouse battling cancer, then I will have accomplished my goal.