If you’ve followed this blog – or if you know him – my husband is a mighty contemplative man. He thrives on research and comparison shopping. He seldom does anything fast.

Except fall in love with me, he says with an ear-to-ear grin.

Several years ago I endured six months of active cancer treatment, that is, six rounds of mega-chemo and 37 radiation treatments. I’m told I showed great courage and fortitude. I never whimpered, “Why me?”.

I am the type who adheres to the creed to “Don’t think about it; just do it!”

Because, what’s the choice?

There were fearsome days and lonesome nights of incredible crap, cruelly marauding side effects which left me weary and warped my sense of well-being. I spent many nights upright in a natty corduroy lounge chair, not in a pleasant state.

Chemo the Terrorist had invaded our humble abode, followed by Radiation and its Fatigue. The combo re-made me as a replica of Flat Stanley, the famous children’s book. Flat PJ didn’t get to travel anyplace exotic or interesting, photo ops published everywhere; she melded with the Laz-Y-Boy and endured.

We’d always loved those pixie-patterned chairs – and the rest of the family room furniture. We are ‘buy-and-hold’ people. We make good choices and stick with them. Just as we stick by each other.

But as I’d cycled into a full sense of wellness – and had an inch of hair – by September, I changed my mind. I asked my husband if we could replace all furnishings. I needed to change the scene of the assault of treatments to kill the treacherous cancer.  I needed more than mental crime scene tape to move on with life.

I am not typically the “off with her head”, impulsive type who would clear cut a room filled with things I had loved. I am neither that fickle nor that financially fool-hardy. My husband is even more deeply entrenched against change than I, and does not part well with his $$.

But he loved me, and he understood. With a simple expression of my deepest wish, my thrifty husband heeded my heart, and we went shopping.

Would you believe it – in the very first store, we found everything: a table and four chairs for dining, an entertainment unit by Tommy Bahama, several chairs and an ottoman. We bought the furnishings in less time than a series of Super Bowl TV ads. We loved the ensemble – here’s our Master Card. Wrap it up with a bow and deliver it post haste –

And, it all got delivered to our house a year to the day after I’d begun the fated chemo therapy regimen.