The Wear is Showing

I fell in love long distance...online. We talked, chatted in the chat room that brought us together and emailed for months, exchanging pictures and really getting to know one another before I boarded a plane for the frozen tundra of Minnesota. I would finally meet the person who had stolen my heart. We saw each other every month or so for another year and a half. Then I packed it up and moved North. Our Commitment ceremony was held on Shipwreck Beach, Kauai, Hawaii in 2010 and we began life together…

Shock. Fear. Complete disbelief. Fear. Oh, did I say that already? You’re damn right I did. There are not too many words that will mortify a person like the words “brain tumor,” “cancer,” or “surgery” do. Put them all in one sentence and you’ve really got it going on. Our “life” together slammed into a brick wall at a very high rate of speed in early 2017.

Test after test after test preceded the urgent, “life changing” brain surgery and cancer treatments. Because of the nature of the beast, the surgery scarred the control center for my left side, requiring major therapy to walk again and I lost the use of my left arm...permanently.

While I am “cancer free,” the lasting effects of the surgery indeed have changed our lives and my lack of independence wears on our relationship, even a year and a half after surgery. I’m disabled, a fall risk, I can’t bathe without help, I have great difficulty with daily tasks...folding or hanging clothes? Forget it! It’s not that I can’t do it, I’ll get a single shirt folded in about an hour and a half. I lack the patience.

I see the stress on her face. The pressure of dependency for the rest of our lives wears on both of us. I feel guilty and she, well, she is committed to me and stands by me 100%, even when I’m doing my best to drive her away. I count my blessings believe me, I do, and I had no idea, that day on Shipwreck Beach, that we would survive such difficult tests on our journey...together; on our own little shipwreck.