Pesky, so glad you and your son have been able to get through these difficult times. Thank you for sharing your story. I think we all learn a little and may see things a little differently after someone has written about their problems. Years ago, I stood at the same crossroads as you, took the same path, and like you, the roads met up again, for a time. A year later they separated again, for good after, 13 years of marriage. Fortunately, there were no children to get hurt. We got married just after we both turned 19. We didn't know ourselves well, let alone each other. We didn't talk about the important stuff. The infidelity was a symptom of how disconnected we were. If we had met 5 years later, I don't believe we would have been partners. I hope I have been more open and aware with my current partner. I still find it hard work sometimes. Next year will be our 25th anniversary. I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, and continuing hope and happiness.

Congratulations on your new puppy. I also got mine from PA too but not a maltese. So now the hard work begins. May the supreme being of your choosing grant you strength to get through it all! Good luck. Take lots of pictures and videos. The videos are fun to watch later on.

My husband's primary care physician has had a long time interest is holistic and nutritional medicine and he incorporates that into his Internal Medical Practice. After my husband's diagnosis, he spent countless hours educating us about how a change in diet along with other more natural remedies can work in tandem with modern medicine (to optimize the best results possible). In other words, we follow the directives of our oncologist exactly as prescribed, but use diet and holistic medicine to help control some of the side effects of the treatments like rebuilding the immune system, stomach problems, energy levels and so on. And it works! When my husband started seeing him, the doctor put him on a diet that focus's on the G-Bomb foods, restricted sugars and asked him to avoid as much animal protein as possible as it's very hard on the kidneys. He also asked him to eat as much organic food as possible (even when he eats meat) to avoid the pesticides, antibiotics and other contaminants. Fish is the preferred protein if meat is consumed but only non farmed ocean fish like Alaskan Salmon. He's also supposed to (but doesn't always) avoid flour and other processed foods. Russian black bread is my husband's weakness so that's a tough one. LOL I would say that 85% of everything we do food wise now is home made from natural and organic foods and only 5% of what he eats is an animal based product. Meat he can live without but other than switching to Organic, milk was also something where he couldn't compromise. There is famous doctor who's work our doctor was familiar with before he became popular. Even though I'm not into the hype of the popular doctor, parts of his program or his marketing stradegy, his website still has lots of articles and information about how nutrition and diet affects the body. And how it can help to keep someone from getting sick. You may have heard of him too, Dr. Joel Furhman. The problem I think is that people perceive that good diet will "cure" cancer, but that's not the case. And people think cure the cancer and it's over, but that's not the case either. Because their immune system is wiped out, many people with cancer become ill, even gravely ill with other ailments after the cancer is gone. The diet helps the body to rebuild the immune system and decrease the chance of secondary disease. From July 2012 to Mid 2013 my husband was on the strong chemo treatments and finally went into remission in June 2013. However, to keep the myeloma from returning, he was put on a mild but continuous chemo regiment for life. He started the diet shortly after starting chemo in 2012 and has not been sick with as much as a cold since 2013. If he slacks from the diet for any length of time, he says he can feel his energy drop and system weaken. G-Bombs are only part of the equation as there are lots of other foods that are are important too, Kale for example which is growing in popularity, broccoli and avacados to name a few. There's a ton of information on Dr. Fuhrman's site. As I mentioned earlier, the hype of the site was a real turn off for me but once I was able to see past that, I (we) found a great deal of information to be very helpful. Dr. Furhman

How old is your son? I ask because the bold geometric wall will not be remotely restful in his bedroom, which may be a consideration whether he's quite young or in his teens. I generally love bold artwork, but I feel ill at ease just looking at that jumble of seemingly angry triangles. ;)