It all started on that Tuesday morning. My boyfriend woke up and couldn’t take a deep breath. That’s the day my world changed. I felt like I blinked and then I was sitting there in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia the day after his biopsy trying to put a smile on his face telling him everything was going to be okay. Fast forward four more days and then I found out: it’s cancer. If I had to pinpoint a moment where I felt the weakest in my life up to this point it would be that moment. I felt as though my world collapsed around me and I couldn’t breathe. There was nothing I could do or say to make him feel better about this. I couldn’t take the pain away, I couldn’t tell him everything will be fine because I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I couldn’t give him advice because I’ve never gone through this before in my life. But then it hit me, the one thing I can still do is love him the way I always have.

Loving someone who has cancer is a difficult thing. But through it all, you need to keep your spirits up. You need to keep his spirits up. You need to have hope and faith in God that you’ll get through this. That he will get through this. That he WILL beat this. From what I’ve experienced in these past few weeks, in order to beat this: it’s 50 percent treatments and 50 percent the attitudes that you have. The doctors can do everything in their power but sometimes that isn’t enough. You need the morale and the support of your friends and family. Love is the most important thing to give someone in this situation. And that love that you give must be genuine, and the same love that you would have given sick or not.

Some of the things I’ve done to keep his spirits up are make the best playlist in the world, sold over 150 livestrong type bracelets in honor of him, raise money for our Relay For Life team in honor of him, and talk about the future. The last one is the most important one. To talk about the future means that there will be a future. We talk about things that are more short term like this summer, and more long things like what we will be doing in five years. All of these little comments about the future, about life without cancer, are signs of hope and faith.

Some of the other things that we have done are joke around like normal and pick on each other (in the best way possible), fight when we need to fight, and be honest with each other. Honestly is the best way to go. We can’t keep things bundled up inside, especially when it comes to how we are feeling about this. This is all happening so fast, but being able to talk to someone, that someone being your best friend and boyfriend, makes it seem more understandable. Having each other makes us stronger and that is how I will love my fighter.

Loving someone with cancer isn’t easy, but it isn’t hard either. You need to be able to keep things the same, cherish the memories, remember to always laugh and to always say “I love you.”