Reflections on Marriage and Cancer

This is a guest post by: Dennis Pyritz, RN, BA, BSN, practiced oncology nursing from 1987–2004 and was active in local, national, and international ONS projects during that time. In 2001 he was diagnosed with a rare cancer—t-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL), relapsed in 2004, achieved remission again with alemtuzumab and consolidated with an allogenic peripheral blood stem cell transplant. He is currently building an active cancer blogging community at his blog, www.beingcancer.net. The blog was recently featured in Top 50 Cancer Sites & Resources.

This morning I woke up and realized that today was another of those special days by which we mark the miracle of our continued survival from cancer - the 38th anniversary of the marriage of myself and my lovely wife, Tish. More importantly is the fact this is the seventh time that we have been able to celebrate this day since my diagnosis. That I would be writing about this or even being alive to celebrate it in 2009 was not even something that I would have considered or believed during anytime from 2002 to maybe 2006.

So my first thought upon realizing that fact - actually my second thought, my first being a husband's relief at remembering that the day was his anniversary - was a natural one for any blogger - here is reflective fodder for an essay.

The diagnosis and experience of cancer can profoundly impact that primary relationship of cancer victim and spouse. A number of cancer victims have written me and alluded to less than supportive relationships in their cancer struggle. And several have referred to the fact that their marriage did not survive the cancer even though the patient did.

I remember many years ago, working as a nurse on the oncology unit, what seemed then a startling revelation, that daily family life went on despite the medical crisis. I remember a lymphoma patient who had spent a long time in the hospital and had gone through some really tough times. His wife was in the room, the two young children eating ice cream at the nurses station. The hushed sounds of a somewhat heated discussion emanated from his isolation room. Problems with the kids, the frustration and weariness of the wife in dealing with a myriad of domestic crises alone and feeling unsupported. Expectations of my patient that were perhaps unrealistic and yet keenly, uncontrollably felt by his wife.

I have witnessed the bone-tired weariness of spouses. I have seen in a hundred faces the fear that cancer will overtake the spouse, leaving the other alone, unprepared for a future that may extend for decades. This is not what they signed up for ... and yet it is - "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health", words we all recited but, on that joyful day, did not, could not imagine. In the image above a caption "Leukemia victim and caregiver" simply does not fit with the emotional message. But illness can bring out the best and, per some of my email, the worst in us. Illness challenges our notions of the steadiness and the more enduring comforts and grace of marriage, those tender mercies of a loving relationship.

In the joyful photo above of Tish and I, you can easily imagine what we are thinking, and not thinking, in that moment. We are thinking "how lucky I am", "I have never been this happy before", and "we have our whole lives before us". We are thinking about our honeymoon on the beaches of Florida, we are thinking about sexual bliss, we may even be imagining what kind of kids we might have, their sex, what they will look like, what they will become. We may even have stored somewhere the vague image of two older people, sitting in rocking chairs with little grandchildren playing at out feet. We may be wondering what kind of people we may become, what kinds of success we may achieve, what impact we may have together on the world (we are children on the sixties, idealistic baby boomers after all).

But images that do not flow through our minds on that wedding day - sitting at the hospital bedside of the other, listening to wet, struggling breath sounds, holding a hand on fire with fever. We do not imagine crying together with our young adult children. We do not imagine sitting in the quiet clinical sterility of a doctor's exam room, fearfully awaiting news of a biopsy. No, on this magic wedding day, these images are galaxies away.

So here I sit in my study, thirty-seven years later on a warm rainy morning, sharing these thoughts with a community of colleagues and fellow-travelers whom I have never met. When I first read about my disease on a cloudy cold afternoon in December 2001, when I read the words "aggressive and invariably fatal with a median survival of 7.5 months", my life changed forever in an instant, in the millisecond that it took to process the import of those words.

That day was an end of dreams. How many more Christmases, birthdays ... anniversaries might I be granted? For years I would not make plans that extended further than six or so months in the future. My life might end at any time. But, as playwright Sherwood Anderson had proclaimed, my relationships with my children, my mother, my family, my wife would "continue on, seeking their own resolution."

So this day, this June 18th in 2009, is yet one of those myriad days when I take time to count my blessings. I awoke this day almost having forgotten that the years since my diagnosis qualify as nothing less than a miracle. This wedding anniversary of ours is a stellar reminder.

So many special moments. In the year after my first remission we were able to take advantage of a speaking engagement in Norway to wander the ancestral lands of Tish's forebearers, Sweden - a trip that I thought might slip away with the rest of my life's dreams. We have been able to enjoy the promise of two beautiful grandchildren. We have gone on vacations together and witnessed hand-in-hand the weddings of our children (suddenly I have the alternate image of Tish standing alone in formal wedding outfit, clutching flowers, or telling tiny children what their grandfather was like).

We downsized our home, our income, but not our dreams. I have had to redefine myself ... as a relapsed cancer patient, as a nurse struggling to reclaim the ability to practice, as a transplant survivor, then as a half-blind disabled provider ... and with each definition, subtly redefining aspects of the marriage.

But the solidity of that relationship holds fast, like an anchor in a rocking violent sea. It could have floundered. I made mistakes, so did Tish, so do we all. And cancer can put a crushing weight on marriage already challenged by the day-to-day struggles of modern life. So in a way being able to celebrate this 38th anniversary is my second miracle. And being able to write this post solves the perennial dilemma of what to give a wife on this special day.

So darling Tisha, this is my gift to you ... and to you as well, my dear readers.

By Dennis Pyritz, RN, BA, BSN

Comments

[Joyce Hislop]

Dear Dennis,
Thank you for sharing your beautifully expressed tribute to your wife as your 38th anniversary approaches. I have never read so articulate an insight to marriage; from the innocent joy of youthful beginnings, to endurance through unimagined struggles.
Sincerely,
Joyce Hislop,RN,OCN