Day 45: Health

I can pinpoint when my marriage started unhinging; I actually made a phone call to one of my aunts and was telling them how I could not imagine being able to deal with my husband being sick if it kept up like it was. I'm not ashamed of having felt scared and afraid, it was a terrifying bout of illness. Little did I know, three weeks in, that it would transform both our lives.

The next seven months were incredibly challenging, but I never felt like the illness was going to break us again. It was just a few minutes that one night. I pulled it together and recognized that marriage is not a state of being but a promise you make again and again. I made my promise and didn't look back for years to come.

Being diagnosed with an illness of any kind can change a person; I know it changed me. When I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the ripe old age of 30, it shocked me. Within a year, I had survived two surgeries and the start of a daily medication I cannot live without. Altogether, it was tough but ultimately something I could move past without much external change in my behaviors.

Debilitating and relapsing illnesses, like NMO, are something altogether much more challenging. Despite everything that happened afterwards, I could never really be angry about how much my spouse changed after he got sick at the even more shocking age of 29 (why those decade years seem to hit us harder I'll never really know. Is it different numbers in cultures that don't use base ten counting?). I wasn't a huge fan of all the changes, but I know that going from being a healthy human to being a human whose health can deteriorate, without warning, overnight is not just another thing someone does.

When I first learned that there was a 60 day countdown to the divorce next steps I also learned that he had had a relapse. It was just a passing comment from my attorney, but it is haunting. I hate knowing that he was ill again. I wonder when it happened and how it may have appeared differently this time (it emerged differently during the first two episodes). Mostly, I was sad: for him, for us, for his family and any caretakers helping him. 

At the peak of my anger and disappointment, I still wanted to make sure he would be taken care of if I wasn't around. Apparently he was, for which I am incredibly grateful. All I ever wanted was for us to be healthy and happy; turns out we just could not be those things together.

I am grateful for my health. I appreciate that I celebrated ten years of being cancer-free this spring. I do not take my well-being for granted and try to guard my physical, mental, and emotional health as best as I possibly can. A huge part of me chasing my passions right now is knowing that I will not be able to do this forever. Thankful everyday for the peace of mind that comes with being able to take on the world.

For more things I'm grateful for, keep coming back!