When Rhiannon approached me with the idea of creating an online journal/blog to chronicle our battle with Cancer, I nearly jumped to my laptop to create our workspace.

I don't want to speak for her, but one of the hardest parts of her Cancer diagnosis - is having to give repeated updates to family and friends - aloud - over and over. I find the emotional vulnerability from updating someone to updating another person unpredictable and draining.

We hope this will allow us to communicate with friends, family and at times to one another in a semi-private space. I encourage you to please leave comments, thoughts and reflections... Despite it being a very bleak subject, we have connected with one another at levels I never imagined possible.

Day One

Before I commit any words to the screen.... I want to preface this by saying I will never truly know how painful or difficult this is on Rhiannon because the Cervical Cancer is currently something that is solely residing in her system.

It's affected me in ways I can't even begin to describe with words... I was the very first person to be made aware of her diagnosis. Rhiannon was under an anesthetic, so the doctor alerted me in the waiting room a half hour before she received word.

I'm not entirely sure how we even arrived at this moment. In the 15 or so months of being with Rhiannon, she repeatedly visited doctors for scheduled appointments or when she felt a tiny bit under the weather.

She's genuinely, the most healthy and responsible person I know when it comes to personal health. With the exception of visiting a doctor earlier this year to treat a 2nd degree ice burn.... I can't honestly tell you when I went in for general health check. Quite frankly, I'm fucking terrified to sit in front of a doctor knowing that I'm not exactly a picture of health.

When Rhiannon, mentioned to me that she was experiencing some internal pains... she made an appointment with her physician and initial results were inconclusive. The pain continued, more tests were ordered and everything remained inconclusive.

I began to over hear words like "dysplasia" and "pre-cancerous"... terms I didn't want to Google, so I differed to Rhiannon to look me in the eye and have her explain to me what the doctors were relaying.

We were referred to an Oncologist, who recommended a small surgical procedure... said Oncologist called me over last Monday to inform me that Rhiannon had Stage 1 Cancer.

In the middle of learning that we would be referred to a Radiologist to run a PET scan, we were alerted that our chances of having a child were slim to none.

That very moment was incredibly painful... Rhiannon and I have talked about having children together before we began going steady. I'm pretty sure that there's nothing more painful to her than the possibility of not being a mother.

There's so much more to explore emotionally when discussing our fertility hurdle.... but time doesn't permit for that right now.

This for me was the final moment of normal.