Joey Feek Cancer Update: Joey ‘More Frail Than Ever,’ Continues To Prepare Family For Life After Her Death

Joey Feek is “thin and gaunt, and more frail than ever,” according to her husband, Rory Feek, but that doesn’t stop her from helping to prepare her family for life after she’s gone.

Joey Feek was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in May 2014, three months after giving birth to her daughter Indiana (Indy for short), according to a previous report by the Inquisitr. At the advice of her doctors, Joey later underwent a radical hysterectomy and several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. At the time, Joey seemed to be doing better, and everyone thought she may actually beat the disease. However, as she prepared to complete her last round of chemo in October 2015, her doctors made a heartbreaking discovery. Joey’s cancer had not only returned, it had spread to other parts of her body, including her colon.

Joey’s doctors told her that the cancer was spreading aggressively and rapidly, leaving her to make the hardest decision of her life: to continue treatment knowing it would only buy her a few more months, or say enough is enough. The decision was one no one should ever have to make, but after discussing it with her family, Joey decided to stop treatment and enter hospice care so she could spend the remainder of her days, however many that may be, at home with her friends and family.

Since Joey’s diagnosis, her husband and duet partner, Rory Feek, has been documenting her battle on his blog, This Life I Live. On Thursday, February 4, Rory shared a post titled “sowing seeds,” in which he talked about Joey’s favorite past time, gardening, and how she has been preparing her family to care for the seeds she’s sown when she is no longer here to do so herself.

“As fun as it is to see the seeds coming to life, this isn’t just fun for Joey,” Rory wrote. “She does it because it’s important to her. Planting a garden and raising food that she can feed her family is part of who Joey is. That doesn’t stop just because you have cancer or are stuck in a bed for months-on-end. Life goes on. And what was important, is still important to her. I love that about my wife. That, and a million other things.”

Despite being confined to her hospice bed, Joey has still been working hard to prepare her seeds for spring. She’s asked Rory and her family to collect the shells of eggs so she can start planting and has told them when they need to be transplanted into bigger pots.

“Her hope is that they will make the trip home with us to Tennessee,” Rory continued. “Whenever that is. To be planted in our garden, and grow and find their way onto our plates or into jars in our pantry.”

There are many days, according to Rory, that he sits by Joey’s bed with his laptop taking notes on the things she wants him to know. He admits that he doesn’t enjoy doing this, but he does it for her. All Rory says he really wants is to have Joey here with him.

“I often sit beside her as she talks to me about the garden and tries to teach me the things I will need to know,” Rory wrote. “I take notes in my laptop, but I don’t really want to know. Not really. I just want her to be able to be in the garden – this year and twenty more after it. I want her to be able to weed and water and hoe and harvest, and to be able to can and freeze the fruit of her labor and feel the pride that she’s felt in the past at knowing that “these sweet potatoes and beans and tomatoes are from our land”…from her hands. That’s what I really want.”

“So thin and gaunt, and more frail than ever, my wife is sowing her seeds – putting down roots in the soil of our lives and hearts,” Rory added. “Getting us ready for something that we can’t see right now for the tears in our eyes… something she might not even get to see at all. Spring.”

[Image via ‘This Life I Live’]