Well, I had every intention of creating regular blog posts here, with a goal of at least quarterly. But life happened.
First, shortly after having a wonderful friend help me get set up with WordPress, which I had used before in my role at Audubon, but in a much more complicated setup than a personal website, I got a really fantastic job. That role was located in Detroit, Michigan. My husband and I packed up our home again and moved to a new state. We stayed at a long-term rental in Pontiac, Michigan, with our two cats while I started my role as the Chief Business Officer at the Michigan Science Center, and he sought out a new job. We explored the area. We connected with a realtor I had found through a different job search. We sold our home in Worcester, MA, and bought a house in Grosse Pointe Park, MI. It was a wild real estate market in the spring of 2022. The first beautiful weekend in April, we went to the zoo and ate ice cream. We got COVID for the first time and spent a week in bed, eating Doordashed food and drinking as much Gatorade as we could stand. We moved into our new home in May of 2022.
The job at Mi-Sci was incredible. The energy in that building is amazing, made so by both the place’s history and the people who keep it going day in and day out. I oversaw our earned revenue strategies, audience engagement, marketing, PR, and strategic initiatives. I got to work with incredible people who I hold close to my heart even though I had to leave.
Why I left began on a typical, early summer day in June 2023. We were getting ready to tour an elected official through the building in hopes of funding, which has since come through for the museum. While we waited, my phone rang. It was my husband. He had just had a seizure at work. He was confused and upset that his boss was making him go to the hospital. I rushed out of work and drove to DMC Sinai-Grace, where I found him in the emergency room. He was convinced that he had just had a panic attack or passed out. While we waited for more information from the ER doctors, he had another seizure. This one was undeniable. This led to a CT scan, which revealed lesions on his brain. That led to the head of neurosurgery visiting us the next day and transferring care to Ascencion St. John on Moross, close to our house and with a stellar oncologist. My husband had a biopsy of his brain a few weeks later, and the diagnosis of stage 4 Glioblastoma was confirmed.
Glioblastoma is a cruel cancer. As someone said, “nothing is supposed to grow in your brain.” When something does grow in your brain, bad things happen. The cancer changed my husband in ways I could never have imagined. He battled the disease for eleven months and succumbed to it on May 4, 2024. He had signs before his seizure in 2023, symptoms that everyone chalked up to post-COVID symptoms. Phantom smells, chills, and a sour stomach. He lost nearly 60 pounds during that time, and looking back at the photos, I think, “how could we have not known he was sick with cancer?”
I worked all through his illness. But before he got sick, at least diagnosed, I had started graduate school. I decided to get an M.A. in organizational leadership from the University of Oklahoma. I wanted to better understand the role of leaders in organizations and how organizational culture develops and changes. The first semester was engrossing. The second semester was the summer of 2023, and I withdrew from classes and deferred my degree on a spousal medical exemption, knowing what would come with the diagnosis of Glioblastoma. But I did work. I was incredibly fortunate to have a supportive boss and colleagues who allowed me to work on projects from home, hospitals, and doctors’ offices. As we settled into a routine in the fall of 2023, I returned to the office more regularly. He even came to an exhibit opening, the last time most of my coworkers would see him. As my husband’s behavior and mental condition changed, work became a safe place, and I tried to spend as much time there as I could, coming home for his appointments and the care he needed.
When he went into hospice in El Paso, the only place he would do so, I took a complete leave of absence from work. I cleaned the house from top to bottom. A friend came from Texas to help me. Another friend came from New Mexico to live with me while I went back and forth to Texas, ensuring our pets had steady care. After my husband died, I found myself in a financial place where I didn’t have to work for a bit. I also knew I physically couldn’t work. I was raw, angry, and sad, and I had absolutely no filter. And the last call I had with my husband, where he was begging me to take him home, I had on the loading dock of work. The call I had about his seizure happened on the main level, by the STEM Playground. The bathroom I used every day was where I would go to sob so people wouldn’t see me doing that in my office. In the conference room, a neighbor called me to tell me my husband was lost in our neighborhood, confused and in his pajamas, walking down the middle of the street. I couldn’t stomach being back in that building I loved because it reminded me too much of all that pain. So, I quit my job.
I decided to take a long break from work and finish my degree. I re-enrolled in school as I planned two memorial services, one in Massachusetts and one in Texas. Classes began again in late August after all the services were done. The service in Texas was one of the most significant steps in my grieving process. My second full semester was terrific. I learned so much. I am in my third full semester and will only have three classes left after this, which I will spread out over the summer and fall. I am excited to go back to work. I can think of my husband now and be happy for our memories, and still sad but not debilitatingly so. I can drive by the hospital without having to pull over. I have a new chapter starting. I will keep blogging, but about museums and leadership and more work stuff, most likely. But I had to tell this story; it’s part of the process.
Lucy Hale 