Nightmare and a Dream: A Quick Personal Reflection

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The Nightmare

The fact that Stephanie has cancer and significant complications from surgery has yet to sink in.  The weekend before she learned about the mass, Stephanie and I celebrated the wedding of two close friends.  We were dancing, drinking, catching up with friends from all over, and generally doing what you do when you celebrate a couple getting hitched.  Everything was normal!

Stephanie was nurturing her blossoming career in Real Estate and I was completely focused on growing the Engineering Search business at our firm.  We were focused.  We had plans to acquire real estate, travel, renovate, and start a family.  On that one Tuesday, many things changed.  Our focus shifted from work, success, and family creation to family preservation.  

When I see friends or family they ask me how I am doing and I am not sure what to say because I feel as if I am in a state of purgatory.  I live every day with the awareness of what is going on with the love of my life but I don't truly accept it.  Every morning I wake up I look over at Stephanie to see if everything that has happened is just a nightmare.  Unfortunately, every morning I learn again that it is very much reality.  I still don't believe it.  Even as I change her bandages in the morning I want to believe it is only one hell of a realistic dream.


The Dream

One beautiful result of Stephanie's condition is that we are more intimately connected than ever before.  I know that some of you reading this post will go straight to the gutter and confuse intimacy with sexual funny business.  With that in mind, let me define intimacy in the way I mean it.  Intimacy is a close familiarity, friendship, or closeness.  It is the connection you feel with another person when you can all but feel what they are feeling or hear what they are thinking.

I have heard people say that dealing with a spouse's illness will make your relationship stronger, however; I was unaware that it could make us more intimate.  I have never been more connected to Stephanie.  I have never been more aware my love for her.  Draining her tubes, feeding her medicine, holding her tubes when she is nauseous are some of the things that have made us more intimately connected.

If there is any good stemming from Stephanie's diagnosis, it is definitely the strengthening of our love for one another.

 


Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 30, 2014 at 3:29 PM

    Love your positivity. Hang in there guys! Thinking of you everyday. Your strength is inspiring.

    PS - cute pic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 31, 2014 at 12:37 PM

    I don't know you guys, but we have mutual friends. I want you to know that 10 months ago, my sister in law, who is 47 was diagnosed with stage 4C, very advanced Ovarian cancer. When it was diagnosed we were told there was very little they could offer her, and it was inoperable! Not a lot of hope...BUT TODAY SHE IS CANCER FREE! that's right! she had late stage advanced ovarian cancer that had spread through out her abdominal cavity and to other organs. She did what you call "chemo lite", ( we called it "dose dense") and half way through that chemo schedule she was able to finally have surgery. It was a brutal surgery, but she went back to finish her chemo 6 weeks later and July was her last Chemo treatment. Cancer free since and still is!! She had a "not going to give up or give in" attitude, which I think made the difference. And Prayer of course. Hang in there, you can do it!! amazingly she worked through out her treatment, and although it wasn't easy, she adjusted her meds and had very little nausea!

    ReplyDelete

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