PollyAnna, Baby.

DEEEP breaths.  I'm PollyAnna.  I am strong and brave and optimistic, even in the face of adversity.

Ultrasound tomorrow, then we will rule this out as fat necrosis or something else that is boring and non-malignant, and I can move on.

I am busy living my life.  I have things to do.  This is not my new cancer life, this is my fabulous life where cancer and divorce are behind me.  Right?  Right!

Thank you for your continued prayers.  That little spot under my right breast (in the survivor world we call them foobs - fake boobs; I had a double mastectomy) is NOTHING.  I will it to be so.

And I'm praying.  Thanks for your continued thoughts, prayers, and good wishes.

Damnit.

I'm home from the oncologist.  There's a weird spot under my "good" breast, and I need follow up.

Bring on the panic attacks.

It's "probably nothing."  But when you've heard that before and then you have 16 rounds of chemotherapy, 33 rounds of radiation, fifteen surgeries, and a LOT of side-effect-inducing scary meds for six years, well, "probably nothing" isn't enough to bring my blood pressure down.

So, I'm scheduling an ultrasound.  If you pray, please pray for me.  If you don't pray, consider it.  I also take white light, thoughts, karma, candle-lighting, and good wishes.

It is hard for me to function when I go down this path.  I've been down this path before.  Sometimes it ends with surgery (twice so far).

There's a lesson in this, there's something for me.  Okay, life, I'm listening.

I'm so tired.

Relief

My oncologist, whom I adore, emailed me over the weekend.

I don't have cancer.

To say this is a relief would be like saying that to have one's arm torn off by a grizzly might hurt.  There are really no words to describe the sense of elation that comes with believing that I have another shot at life.  Every year, my appointment sends me spinning in this way; I'm just glad that now I only go a little crazy around cancer appointment time, and not all day every day as the first several years went.  (It's hard to forget cancer with scare after scare, surgery after surgery.)

I also got good news - well, I choose to view it as good news.  My thyroid is WAY off, and I'm extremely hypothyroid.  Why is this good news?  Because it explains my fatigue and general sluggishness this past month, and because there is a simple fix.  (I take a synthetic thyroid drug because mine has been "off" for years, and occassionally I need to alter the dosage.  It appears that now I need to alter the dosage immensely, but with that simple alteration I should feel better very quickly.)

I have felt like I am just slogging lately, and the fact that my PollyAnna brain went as crazy as it did on the way to my oncology center is proof that I'm just not myself.

I'm going to be okay.

Hallelujah.

The voices in my head

Today I had to go get a blood draw in preparation for my annual oncology appointment.  I was busy at work, had to walk 20 minutes from my office to the appointment, and was running late.  I didn't have two minutes to think about the appointment...

Until I was halfway there.  And then, without my permission, my head went to a dark place.

It sounded like this:

Man, I hate going to this place.  All that chemo, all those horrible memories.  Ugh.  It's been a while since I've been there.  I hope no cancer grew in that time.  God, what if they find something?  I had a headache last week, my first migraine, but maybe it wasn't a migraine, maybe it was brain mets.  I can't think like that....but it's so scary.  One little blood test, and it can turn my whole world upside down.  What would I do?  If it came back?  It could be back.  It could.  What would I tell Katherine?  I would try to be calm.  I would tell her, "We did this before, we could do it again."  Last time I was really public about it, maybe I could fake it this time....wear a wig all the time, keep working, not tell anyone except my closest people.  Maybe I could do chemo after work.  Could I work through it?  Would I lose my job because I couldn't work?  How could I put Katherine through that again?  And oh no, what if I put her through divorce and then I died?  How could she stand it?  Maybe I could have Bryan move back into the basement when I got really sick, to transition him back in to take care of her more.  Maybe I shouldn't get divorced, because if I'm just going to die anyway, I just can't put Katherine through it....I could put up with Bryan for her...am I ready to die?  I don't want to die...

And this is how it was.  I stopped myself when I realize how quickly I'd spiraled downward, I got it together, I got into the building.

The very first thing I heard upon walking in the doors was, "My friend just lost the battle after eight years."  I'm just over seven years out, and as I walk into the cancer institute that is what I hear.  Is it is a sign?  Please don't let it be a sign.

I make it through the blood draw, and then escape as quickly as I can back to work.  I sit down and promptly start sobbing, and my boss hugs me and promises me that I'm well and that it will all be okay.

It'll all be okay.  I'm allowed to get divorced because I'm not going to die., so Katherine won't have to deal with any more pain caused by me.  I'm going to live a long, long time.  Right?

I get test results in a week or so.

This is really happening

When I had cancer, after the initial diagnosis I was required to have three surgeries (two large and one small) before I started chemo, and then I did two sessions of chemo before I started to really lose my hair, about two months after the initial diagosis.  I chose to get my head shaved, rather than having it come out bit by bit, leaving a trail around the house, because it completely unnerved me to touch my head and have a handful come out.

Being PollyAnna, I turned it into a bit of a party.  I got my closest friends to come, and my hair stylist hosted us at her salon early on a Saturday before it really opened.  I didn't want to see myself half shaved - I've never been a punk rocker - and so I faced away from the mirror, towards my friends, as she shaved me.

Finally, it was done, and they asked me if I was ready to see myself.  I took a deep breath, and they slowly turned my chair around to face the mirror.  The words that flew out of my mouth at that moment shocked me, because what I said, with tears streaming down my face, was, "I have cancer!"

I knew I had cancer.  I had plenty of proof that I had cancer already.  But there was just something about seeing my bald head that drove the point home in a whole new, painful way, and it was at that precise moment that I finally understood that this was really happening to me, that it was not a bad dream, that my life was forever changed.

I feel like the next stage of my divorce might be similar to that moment of seeing myself in the mirror.

After much resistance (a topic for another post), Bryan has finally agreed to go out and get an apartment on schedule for his July 1st move out date.  In so many ways, this makes me happy: when he's here, it is awkward in the extreme, and I never know if he's going to be nice or snap my head off with sharp words; I am always certain that he will leave a trail much worse than breadcrumbs that I will have to clean up.  But the biggest reason of all, is that it allows all of us to move forward, to start the next part of our lives rather than this really difficult living in limbo.

We have been exchanging lists of what to keep, what to give up.  We've got a plan for Katherine's room (and I need to go furniture shopping for a new bed for her).  We're divvying up the kitchen things, and I have a shopping list for that, too.

But despite the fact that for more than a year we've lived separately in this house, that we have had a child custody schedule of alternate weekends, that we are very open with friends and family about the divorce, that many life changes have taken place to move us closer to divorce (including my working outside the home, and him working out of state during the week)....I'm pretty sure that the day he moves out and there are spaces where his things used to be, it's going to be a bit of a shock.

I have no regrets about the decision to divorce.  I gave it everything I had, I played by the rules, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't make the marriage work.  If Bryan begged to have me back - a VERY unlikely scenerio - I would not be tempted, because I know that our marriage was not good for either of us.

But still, some days, it's hard to believe that this is happening, that this is really my life.  Sure, I'm a capable woman who is taking charge of her future....but this is scary stuff.  Sometimes I wonder how I'll make it through.

And I'm really dreading the moment that I look in the mirror in a half empty house, and see the face of divorce.

Note: I will address the parenting aspects of this major change in another post.  Tonight, that just feels like more than I can manage.  Katherine is doing great, but I am not a fool, and every time I think about the changes in her life I feel my heart breaking.




Does this make sense to anyone, or am I truly looney to feel this way?

What has made your divorce feel more real and tangible? 

Do you ever feel like this (divorce, or other difficulty) isn't really happening to you, that somehow this can not be your life?

Thank you, dear readers, for sharing your thoughts.

Alternate Endings

I celebrated my cancerversary (the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis) last week, in the middle of an already rough week.  It's hard to relive those particular memories, and all of the pain associated with the diagnosis and subsequent years of treatment.

I posted a note on Facebook about how many years I'd been cancer free, and received a lovely series of replies from friends and family congratulating me on my good health.  One of those was from the husband of a friend of mine. His wife was diagnosed a year and a half ago, and she came to me when she got sick, looking for information and inspiration.  Last year, she stood up in front of my church congregation and thanked me publicly for my inspiration, using the words, "You are a hero to me," and it caught me so off guard that I sobbed.

She died six months ago, leaving behind two young children.  One of those children is close in age to Katherine, and the other is so young that he will never remember his mother.  Her husband's congratulations were among the most gracious I have ever received, because though I know he's glad for me, he'd likely trade me in a heartbeat for his soulmate's life.

And that's not all.

Today I bumped into the friend of a friend who has been fighting cancer; the mutual friend and I were diagnosed around the same time and went through early treatment together, with the notable difference that I got better, but her cancer metastacized.  Her cancer is throughout her body, and she's been on chemo nonstop for seven years.  Her time is coming, and there is no way around it.  She was hours from death recently, and hospital interventions saved her, but the end is near.  Our mutual friend wept as she told me.  She asked, more dumbfounded than cruel, "How come you are healthy and she is dying?"

These stories sit in the marrow of my bones, along with others like them.

It could have been me.  It could have been you.

Seven years after my cancer diagnosis, and my hair touches the brastrap across my back - longer than it was before I got sick.  I have several feet of scarring related to cancer covering my body, but the scars are no longer bright red, and some of them have faded so much that it's hard to find them.  I lost two breasts, and while I still miss them, I have two new very perky breasts in their place.  I used to go to the doctor five or ten times per week, and now I go a couple times per year.

  

But it could have been very different.

My daughter knows who I am, and even if I died tomorrow (not in the plans, thank you very much!), she would remember me, and she would remember how deeply I love her.  I have made sure of that.  Every time I kiss her goodnight, it is a victory.  I nearly missed ever reading the children's classics to her, but we've read the Little House series and Pollyanna together, we've read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm together, we're reading Anne of Green Gables.  There was a time when she was a baby that I looked forward to reading things like that with her, and there was a time when I thought we'd never get to do that together.

I do not have the luxury of taking these things for granted.  Every time I show up for a class graduation, every time we go camping, every time we sit down to dinner, there is a part of me that is aware that I nearly lost it all.

Why is it that some live, and some die?

  

                                                             *****

I look at happy marriages and think "That could have been me."

I recently read a post on Big Little Wolf's Daily Plate of Crazy about What Makes Men Tick.  The article was interesting, but it was a comment by someone named Zammo that had me spinning.  (Take a moment, check it out.)  He gave a list of what "all" men wanted from marriage, a formula if you will for a successful marriage.  It made me want to scream, because *I followed the forumula and it didn't work.*  If Zammo was right, then my marriage would be happily skipping along right now, because I did everything that I was *supposed* to do....but the damn marriage failed anyway.

I wrote a point by point refutation of what Zammo said, proving that he was wrong by the example of my own life, and then I deleted it.  I realized there was no point.  My life is what it is.  It defies simplistic logic.

I recently spent time with two different families; functional, lovely families.  I watched how they worked together, how they played together, how they parented together, how they laughed together.  I watched how they watched each other when they thought the other wasn't looking.  I saw admiration, love, respect.

It could have been me.  I wanted it to be me.

Katherine was with me, and I saw her watching, too.  It could have been us.

The longing of those moments still feels like a tightening in my chest and water in the back of my throat and a tensing of my neck.  It's a physical longing.  It is the feeling of sobbing, without tears or movement, but that gasping tightness.

                                                                     *****

I wore lingerie.  I kept our home beautiful on a shoestring.  I asked about his day, and meant it.  I did without, so that he could have more.  I kept myself attractive.  I encouraged sex.  I held my own outside interests.  I encouraged his interests.  I encouraged him to pursue his dreams.  I asked for little. I made time for the two of us, outside of family life.  I managed the home.  I was frugal.

And it wasn't enough to save our marriage.

                                                                           *****

We all know that every story might have alternate endings.

What if I'd died from my cancer?

What if I lived in a third world country?
What if I didn't have an education?
What if I was older, or younger?
What if I'd never had a child?
What if I was rich, instead of broke?
What if I had majored in creative writing, instead of economics?
What if I'd married the man who wanted to take me on his yacht around the Aegean?
What if I'd never have married Bryan?
What if I wasn't an optimist?

The questions are unanswerable.

                                                                          *****

I do not know why I got cancer, even though I was height weight proportionate, exercised, breastfed my baby, ate organic, slept in a dark room.  (The counter to each of these is a breast cancer risk, according to some.)

I do not know why I appear to have survived cancer, as I watch others die from it.

I do not know why my marriage had to fail, when it might have thrived, when I willed it with every fiber of my being to thrive.

                                                                          *****

There are no answers, of course.

I am alive, and I have friends that are dead or dying.  There is no good explanation for this, and if there is, I dare you to tell it to a woman on her deathbed.  Why me, and not them?

I am divorcing, despite all the love, care and attention I tried to give my marriage.  I've seen others who don't work nearly as hard at their marriages as I did, and yet those marriages are thriving.  Why them, and not me?

                                                                           *****

I don't know why I didn't get the alternate endings, good or bad.

But I do know this.

I am going to suck the marrow from life.  When it comes time for me to die, I will say that I have lived.

I am not going to waste my second chances.

I will be more fully myself than ever before, because I am alive, and I get that chance.  I will live my life with more love than ever before, because my painful marriage ended, and so I get another chance.  I will develop more fully, because of the pain I've lived through.

I'm alive.  And I am so damn grateful to be alive, despite it all, that I can't frame words around it.  It is GOOD to be alive, and I don't forget it, even when I'm tired, overwhelmed, frightened.

                                                                       *****

And because I love it, and because it says more about pain than any other poem I know, I'll leave you with this last thought before I ask for your input.  Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and

purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you every where

like a shadow or a friend.

                                                                     *****

  

Readers, what alternate endings do you think about?  How do you explain why things went one way, when they might have gone another?  How do you make peace with a world that is so topsy-turvy?

And most importantly - how do you reconcile the fortune of one person with the misfortune of another?  How do you live with the fact that the Indian is dead at the side of the road, while you ride the bus?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts; I look forward to hearing them.

Movies Imitating Life

This evening I went to a movie viewing of 50/50 at a friend's home.  There were seven of us watching, all of us cancer survivors.  I was hesitant to go at first; I like to believe I've put cancer behind me and I wasn't sure what watching a movie about a guy with 50/50 odds of living or dying was going to do for me.

I laughed, I cried.  No, really.  Parts were predictable and silly and light hearted (yes, there are parts of cancer that are funny in the right light, but only someone who has had cancer is allowed to say so!), but the parts that got me the most were the relationship parts.

In the movie, the main character has a lousy girlfriend who lets him down in multiple ways.  There is a scene of him going to chemo by himself on a bus....and it hurt to watch it.  It hit way, way, way too close to home.  And there are tender scenes where the best friend is truly there for his buddy, and those made me cry a bit thinking about my lovely girlfriends and how they'd been there for me, but it was those scenes with the girlfriend that just made it hard to breathe.

Bryan did not know how to support my cancer.  Somehow, it was all about him, and its effects on him, and no matter what I did, I did not get praise from him.....it all just seemed like an imposition.  I know what it feels like to take a bus to chemo because my girlfriends were all busy rushing around making me meals and taking care of my toddler, so I felt like they were tapped out, and I couldn't ask
them for more.Plus, I was too embarrassed to ask for help when he was sitting at home.  Denial isn't pretty that way.

I am working hard at putting that stuff in the past, but it's not easy.  The film brought it all up for me, and I guess it's good to process it...but "good" isn't the same as "fun."  I'm working hard at being the person I want to be, not bitter and angry, but the bitterness and angriness isn't that far below the surface.

In the movie, the guy ended up with a great girl.  He had the strength to kick the lousy girlfriend to the curb, and doing so opened up space for a great new relationship.  Given that, and that he lived, it was just the right kind of happy ending.  I love a good happy ending, and I'm working towards mine.

The Big Long History: My Marriage

I’ve started following a number of divorce blogs, and in doing so I’ve learned that many people start their blogs in the middle, and leave the readers curious about all that stuff that lead up to the divorce.  Here’s the short version.  Okay, it’s really long, but I’ve left out a lot anyway.

A note: I am really trying to live looking forward, not back, but I want to learn from my history.  My goal in blogging is to focus on my present and future, but I do want to make sure that I take the lessons of my past, just not the bitterness and anger that they come with.  A tough road to follow, and I’m open to advice!  Still, I think that the history is important, so here it is.

When Bryan and I first met, I was a tender 23 years old.  I thought I was worldly; I had a job at a major corporation, I’d completed my degree, I’d done some traveling, and I was feeling pretty sassy and independent.  When we first met, I felt no chemistry whatsoever.  Now, tell me, shouldn’t that have been the first warning sign?  I thought he was a nice guy, but not dating material.  We became friends, good friends, and didn’t go on a date for two years after we met.

And then we didn’t date, we fell into bed.  Our first date wasn’t a date at all, it was two friends hanging out and then suddenly we slept together with no discussion or forethought.  At that point I thought, “Oh, he knows me as I REALLY am so maybe this will be a great relationship!” and he thought “Friends with benefits – cool!”  Needless to say, the disconnect was painful.  We spent six months drifting in and out of this, with me wondering why my dear friend didn’t want the whole enchilada with me, and feeling the fool.  This should have made me pay attention, but I was too busy trying to prove that I was worth having to even remember that I hadn’t felt chemistry with him and that any guy who didn’t realize what a catch I am wasn’t worth his salt…..but that kind of understanding was still close to 20 years away for me, and all I thought is, “This hurts!  It will feel better if he wants me!”

Eventually, he decided he did want me, and we officially began dating.  Perhaps I wore him down, which isn’t the same as craving me, cherishing me, but it had the same result: we were officially dating.

I tried to break up with him multiple times during the few years we dated: first, when he was treating me like crap, even though he was known amongst our friends as “such a nice guy!”, but when I told him it wasn’t working for me he begged forgiveness and promised to change his ways; then, when I realized that he never, ever, ever cooked or even made me a sandwich, and that being with him would mean a lifetime of cooking for him and not receiving anything in return (he made one meal to prove he would, and basically didn’t do that again, but I was convinced by the one meal that he WOULD understand….); and then, the big kahuna, he didn’t want to get married or have kids, but I did, so I suggested we date for one more year then part as friends….but at the end of that year he proposed.

Still with me?  We were just dating, the easy times, and there were some pretty big incompatibilities.  But I convinced myself that I was in love, and that settled that.

I was already in the process of switching career tracks and applying to graduate schools when we got engaged, and he decided to quit his job when I did.  I was startled by this – what would he do?  He told me he needed time to think about that question in order to answer it.  I said, “When I’m in grad school, if you sit around eating pizza and playing video games I’ll find it really unattractive and I will be very angry,” and he said, “Of course I wouldn’t do that!”  Guess what actually happened?  I started grad school a couple weeks after we got married…..and he spent the next eighteen months with pizza in one hand and a controller in the other.  When I confronted him about this, as gently as I knew how, he got mad and told me to leave him alone.

Uh oh.

I am a real go-getter, always on the move, lots of ideas swimming in my head, constantly dreaming up plans, organizing friends to get together, doing little projects, volunteering….and I was now married to a guy who really liked to sleep until noon, watch a lot of TV, play a lot of video games.  And eat.  He gained progressively more weight, going from a bit overweight to really overweight.

I convinced myself that it was just like the freshman 15; I was such a good cook he couldn’t resist my mad kitchen skills.  I tried not to think about the fact that he rarely wanted sex any more.

I finished grad school, we moved back to the big city, and we both got full time jobs.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief – the strange time was over, and he’d be his regular self again, motivated and energized.  For a while, I was right.  Things looked good, and we bought a house together.  My dreams were coming true – the guy, the house, the job…..looked good!

Not too long after moving into our new home, I got baby fever.  There was room in the new house, and I was in my early 30s, and I wanted a baby more than anything.  In hindsight, I talked him into it, but at the time I just thought he wasn’t as vocal/passionate as I was (another incompatibility?) but that he was on board.  When we got the positive pregnancy test, I was trembling with ecstasy – and he completely froze.  I actually had to ask him to respond, at which point he said, “I thought this would take six months to a year.”  Oh dear.

I gained 28 pounds in pregnancy.  He gained 40.  Not a deal breaker, but not a good sign.

After our beautiful daughter was born, for the first time since I’d known him, he became a workaholic.  Our daughter was colicky (is that what you call screaming nonstop and rarely sleeping?!), and he sort of disappeared.  I remember saying to him, on the telephone, “You haven’t even seen her in three days…” and he said, “What does she care?!” and I whimpered, “But I’m so tired, and I haven’t seen you either…”  I was classically overwhelmed, and the transition from working woman to stay at home mom was a tough one, and I felt like I was doing it alone.  I was breastfeeding, and he was working, so I did all of the nighttime care….and most of the daytime care, even when we were together.  He loved our daughter, but he wasn’t terribly engaged with her, or with me.

I felt alone, and isolated, and confused.  Where did my loving husband, my friend, disappear to?  I tried to talk to him, and he shut me down.  I tried to explain how disconnected I felt, and how I wanted him, loved him, needed to be part of a team….and he shut down.

When our daughter was two, I wrote him a letter telling him how unhappy our situation was making me, because he wasn’t helping me out with childcare or the house, and I didn’t feel like we were doing this together at all.  We weren’t going on dates because he appeared not to care, and he didn’t want to have sex with me (even though I was initiating).  Ding, ding, ding, that’s a lot of warning bells!  He was devastated with the letter.  He was shocked by it.  I said, “But I’ve been trying to get your attention all along….” But he couldn’t respond.  I asked for counseling, he was insulted.  I started looking up depression symptoms on the web, and he had many of them….I printed them off to show him, begged him to talk to his doctor.  He told me the doc said he was fine.

A couple of months later, at age 35, I found a lump in my breast.  A whirlwind of doctor’s appointments later, it was confirmed: I had invasive breast cancer, and I’d need intensive treatment, including a mastectomy, chemo, and radiation.  Our daughter was two and a half years old….and I was fighting for my life.

My oncologist assigned me a psycho-oncologist (a therapist who works with cancer patients).  I begged her, “Just tell me how to keep my family together!  Cancer is hard on families, help us to be strong and to grow together!”

Bryan was beside me, silent and stunned.  I asked him to take notes from the doctor’s meetings, to read up the research with me to help me make treatment decisions, to help with our daughter.  He was too stunned to do anything.  I called in my friends and family, and they surrounded us with love and care and meals….and he didn’t do much.  I was in too much pain and fear to really notice at first – I was used to ‘doing it all’ and thought maybe we were just handling things differently, and that he’d come around.  After the first couple of doctor’s appointments, he stopped going with me.  (I would sometimes go to ten appointments in a week, for months on end.  I did many of them alone, some with friends….but not with him, because he was unavailable to me.  Eventually I blew up at him and cried and yelled and said helpful things like "How dare you!" and he started coming with me, but he would stare at me and refuse to connect or talk, as I did chemo, and say, "What do you want from me?!"  It was worse when he was there, actually.)

I had the mastectomy, but they found more cancer than they were expecting, so I had to have another surgery to remove even more tissue (lymph nodes).  By this point I was seriously spinning – my prognosis was worse than before, and I was terrified.  And still not getting a lot of support from Bryan.

The day after this second surgery, I was at home, with nasty drains hanging off my body, difficulty lifting my arm (tough to change a toddler’s diapers like that, by the way), and on painkillers.  Bryan came home and said he was feeling suicidal, that work wasn’t going well, that he couldn’t cope.  I went off the painkillers cold turkey, called my psycho-oncologist, arranged for an emergency meeting between her and Bryan (I didn’t know who else to call!), and took charge.  She told me that she couldn’t treat both of us because of the conflict of interest, and I said, “Take care of him!  Please!”  I stayed on suicide watch.  He was so restless that his legs were flailing in his sleep, so I slept on the floor beside the bed….drains, stitches, wounds, pain, and no painkillers, because I was terrified that our daughter would need me in the night and he couldn’t help, and I was even more terrified that he would need me and I’d need to be clear headed.

He took weeks off work.  I called his bosses, I arranged his leave, and I took care of him.  I started to heal from the surgeries, and that meant it was time for chemo.  I sat him down and said, “Look, we need to figure this out….I am terrified and I need you to be present for me.  I want to help you, but I need some help, too.”  He told me that it was “all about me” in my head, and that I was selfish and only cared about myself, not him.  I pointed out that I’d been caring for him for weeks, and he said, “Yah, and now my time’s up.  NICE!”  I said, “But I have cancer, and I’m starting chemo, and I’m worried I’m going to die….” But apparently my arguments weren’t good enough.  He was angry, and felt unloved.

He eventually went on anti-depressants and began seeing a therapist, but he refused to tell me anything about what he was thinking, and I was on the outside.  From the outside, it looked like his depression was getting worse....he wasn't behaving as if he was suicidal, but aside from that he looked miserable.  I begged him to ask for help with his depression, to change his meds to something more effective, to talk to his therapist about how things were really going....and he told me, "You just want me to be a zombie!"  Uhhh, what?  No, I want you to be happy....but he told me that I just wanted him to be on drugs that made him a zombie.  (Sadly, in the seven years since then, his depression has only worsened as far as I can tell.  He continues to have unhealthy behaviors, self-medicating with food, alcohol, and video games.  He sleeps during the day, he's lost touch with close friends, and he's withdrawn from many people.  This makes me genuinely sad for him, but I am not able to help, for reasons I still don't understand.)

The rest of my treatment was a wreck for our marriage.  He got fired.  He disconnected further from me.  I still managed the house and most of the childcare, and he would stay at home and sleep, while I got friends to watch our daughter so that I could go to chemo.  It was pretty ugly.  It’s hard to write about.

It was hard to talk to friends about it, too.  I put a happy face on, and I told people that I would be okay, and that it was a tough time, but that I loved him and he loved me and that's what mattered the most.  I read my blog posts from that time, when I was not being anonymous (I've learned my lesson: this is anonymous because I want it to be deeply authentic, no "putting on a happy face" when that's not true), and I sound so chipper and upbeat that I envy the person that wrote those posts, because surely it wasn't ME - I was terrified, and I felt so alone, and the blog makes it sound like things were going swimmingly between us.

But PollyAnna kicked in, and I said, “We can beat cancer, and we can beat depression.  Let’s fight to get through this!”  We went to counselors – three of them, actually, for about a year each.  We burned through all of our savings, and borrowed money from my parents and racked up a credit card debt that is still crippling.  He still refused to cook, so if I was too ill to cook, he brought home take out or went to a restaurant.  Debt piled up.  He found a new job, and got fired again (for sleeping in client meetings.....seriously?!).  He told me that I was unsupportive and to blame for his problems.

My cancer treatment involved six months of chemo, three months of radiation, and a total of 15 surgeries over the course of six years.  I did many non-chemo drugs in that time, including Herceptin, Zometa, Femara, Aromasin, and Tamoxifen.  I had two major scares where it looked like the cancer had metastasized throughout my body (many, many scans later, finally surgery showed they were benign – hallelujah!).  I had years where I had pain - side effects from cancer drugs and surgery - that made it difficult to get out of bed each day, but I continued to do what I could....which was a lot.  I think those were my Martha Stewart years: I made gourmet meals, kept a lovely home, took our daughter to the pool or the park or the beach or the library, made cookies from scratch, hosted holidays for family and friends, and tried to prove to myself and the world that I would not let cancer define me.  But when I look at how hard I worked, well, I am exhausted just thinking about it.  Those were some hard times.

I still believed we could work it all out.  That I could try harder, that I could be the wife he wanted, that he would want to go on dates with me, work with me as a team, have the fantasy life.  Writing this, I realize how incredibly foolish that looks, but I wanted it so badly, and I was prepared to do anything to fight for it.  I thought if he got past his depression, he would be the guy I thought I fell in love with: funny, smart, lots of integrity.  (That’s who I *thought* I fell in love with….)

He got a new job, and I was hopeful.  He got fired again.  I told him I was willing to go to work – difficult when I kept having surgeries and I was wiped out from treatment – but only if he was willing to promise to help with food and housework, because I couldn’t do it all.  He refused.  For once, I didn’t yield: I told him that I wouldn’t work unless he was willing to help out, because I was working hard for the family, and I wouldn’t do two jobs while he relaxed and watched me work.

I still might have stuck it out, because I’m stubborn and foolish and believe in the marriage vows we made to one another, but there was another twist.

Like some foolish fifties housewife, I’d turned over the finances to him.  My excuse for this is that when we went through it together we’d argue, and I hated that, so it was easier just to have him say, “here’s the budget” and to go with his ideas.  Somehow, though, it never worked, we were always short on cash, even when he was working, even when I was cutting every corner I could, even though he made good money, even though we didn’t take vacations or do home repairs, even though we drove an old car.

He kept getting packages in the mail, and I kept saying “How do you afford them?” because any pocket money designated as mine was going to groceries because we were so broke, and he was getting packages every day.  He would snipe at me “I get bargains,” and “I can’t believe you don’t trust me!”

Well, one day I saw a receipt for something for him on our account – when I’d been cutting corners and doing without (I know a LOT of beans and rice recipes!) – and I was peeved.  I pulled up the account, and it had thousands of dollars in spending.  I pulled up the credit cards….same thing.  He’d been telling me I was spending too much on groceries, but he’d been supporting his hobbies in style.

I confronted him.  I was more upset about his lying – he’d been lying to my face, directly, for ages, blatantly telling me that he wasn’t spending our money! – than the money (though I was plenty upset about the money).  I said, “Shape up or ship out!”  He promised to change.  Back to counseling.  We took a marriage class.  We read books.  We got mentors, a couple with a great marriage who promised to coach us.  And I had such hope that finally, we would start again, and get it right this time.

It didn’t work.  He yelled at me, more than ever before.  He didn’t do his marriage homework (assigned by the class….the class that he told me was a great idea).  He stormed.  He sulked.  He flew into rages, and though he never physically hurt me, he frightened me.  He yelled at me in front of our daughter, even when she begged him to stop, even when I said, “You’re scaring Katherine; can we please talk about this when you’re calm?” and even when I refused to yell back.

And by now, I was angry.  Really, really, really, really pissed off.  I accused him of behaving like a child, not a man.  This did not improve the situation.

And one day, almost out of nowhere, I realized that I didn’t want to fight any more.  I realized that I didn’t care if he did change, that too much had happened, that I was too tired of fighting.  I realized that I didn’t feel loved, and that I couldn’t remember the last time I felt loved.  I didn’t want to remind him that he promised to make an appointment with our counselor and that he hadnn't, I didn’t want to keep dealing with his spending issues (which he initially fixed, and then fell back into), I didn’t want to try to break down his stonewalling techniques, and I didn’t want to have to beg for sex (which, by that point, I didn’t want at all anyway).  I didn’t want to be yelled at.  I didn't want to do all of the work, while he napped, only to have him criticize me when he awoke.

What did I want?  Peace.  Joy.  Partnership.  Respect.  I wanted to be cherished, deeply loved, and I wanted a man I could respect and cherish in return.

At our next counseling appointment, I turned to him in front of our counselor, and said my rehearsed words, “I need to say something.”  I asked for a divorce.  I told him that I didn’t want to fight, I just wanted to move on.  I told him that maybe we could like each other again if we weren’t married.

And then our marriage was over.  I was terrified and relieved, all at once, but I was certain.

But there’s  a twist.

Because of all of our debt, and the fact that I’d been a stay-at-home-mom-cancer-patient for years, we can’t afford two households.  So, since May of 2011, we have been not-separated: our marriage is over, but we continue to live in the same house, separate but together.  He has a room downstairs (and also the family room and a bathroom), and I stay upstairs; we share the kitchen and main living space.  There is, however, a heck of a lot of overlap….an uncomfortable amount of overlap. 

Because we have a daughter, our lives are tangled together forever.  When I asked him what parenting plan he imagined, he said, “I’ll take alternate weekends and Wednesday nights.”  This is great for me, because I love being with our daughter and the idea of having her only half time was really hard for me.  I’m delighted to be the primary custodial parent….but at the same time, I ache for our girl that he is willing to offer her so little.

I continue to cook and clean, to grocery shop and do laundry.  I am the parent who does the homework projects, walks the dog, cleans the kitty litter, weeds the garden, organizes the birthday presents, throws holiday parties, manages our daughter’s social calendar, takes her to the doctor and dentist.  I get up and get her ready for school, and I make sure she’s in bed on time with her teeth brushed.

I’m working now.  I’m learning that I *can* do it all, because I have to.  It is deeply satisfying – I’m starting to provide for myself and our girl financially, and I’m still able to keep the other balls in the air.  Once again, I am deeply exhausted....but I can do it.

He is on the bench (consulting), and not working.  He spends his days playing video games, reading, watching movies, and surfing the net.  He participates with our daughter on his days, and sometimes reads her a story or takes her out to eat, but mostly they watch movies, or she entertains herself while he goes into another room and plays online.  (That is what is going on right now; it's his weekend with her.)

I’m working on figuring out why on earth I would have agreed to this life of mine, why I let it get so bad, why I thought I wasn’t worthy of more.

I am very glad I’m getting a divorce.