How to Ruin Your Marriage in 8 Months: Get Cancer

If you ask John, he most certainly would not agree...and maybe "ruin" is a bit of a dramatic term for how cancer can shape a marriage. We are just past the 6 month mark since I was diagnosed and quickly approaching our 2 year wedding anniversary. On our honeymoon, we planned to vacation every year for our anniversary. To never stop the great adventure we set forth on. This year, I don't think it will be possible and that is breaking my heart.

I feel like I've ruined our lives. When I was first diagnosed, totally catatonic and barely breathing without someone reminding me, I told John he could leave me. He didn't sign up for this shit. I offered again when we found out it was wildtype and there was no known cure. He definitely didn't sign up for that. And recently, I told him again, after a particularly difficult day when I was feeling terrible, acting prickly and being a general brat, that he could leave and I would understand.

Of course, he adamantly refused my offers to leave for an easier life. He is my prince charming. My rock. The person who takes care of me day in and out, no matter how tired he is or how his day went. He works while I am bedridden, supporting us financially. He works so hard, always looking for ways to find a few extra dollars so we can have some of the luxuries we used to enjoy with both incomes.

Here is a short list of random things he does regularly to make my life better:

• drives 10+ miles in no less than 3 different states to find me mac & cheese from Boston Market
• rubs my sore feet and legs, even when I just had a pedicure the same day
• cooks, cleans, takes care of the kitty babies
• brings me things that are out of arms reach so I don't have to move
• validates my feelings and lets me feel them
• drained a very disgusting, painful, ruptured abscess on my bikini line
• bought no less than a dozen types of lotions, trying to find something for my skin issues
• blows up my swan pool float by mouth on demand, even though its huge and ridiculous
• answers texts that I send that say things like "Where do you think a sharks face ends?"
• peels my sunburn that I cannot reach when my chemo-sun sensitivity burns the living hell out of my body randomly

We used to have a rule that when one of us was upset, the other one doesn't get to be upset, so someone could always be the cheerleader. This is harder now. We are often both upset. I know he is staying strong for me, but I see the concern on his face. I know when he's been crying alone because I cry alone too--its not hard to see when you spend every day with someone you share an intimate emotional connection with.

I love him so much. I blame myself for making our marriage a nightmare. We're supposed to be traveling the world. We're supposed to be going to Thailand this fall....not searching for any one who can offer me a renewed lease on life. With over $10,000 in medical bills and an unstable and precarious medical situation brewing in my liver at all times, luxury vacations are about the last thing we can afford right now. Going to San Diego once meant reliving one of the best days of my life when we got engaged and now its wrecked by lab tests, blood draws and visits to the cancer center. 

We haven't even been married for two years and I've wrecked it all with this horrific disease. I want the chance to make it up to him, but I'm not sure I will ever be able to. 

We danced to our wedding song last weekend while attending his cousin's wedding in Temecula and I cried softly into his shoulder. I felt like a shell of who I was less than two years ago, but he still stood tall and steady as we danced. 

Cancer can try, but it cannot break us. He won't allow allow it.

My husband is a good man. I don't deserve him. The world doesn't deserve him.