I may have survived the transplant process, but sadly, the same can’t be said for my marriage.
After almost 14 years as husband and wife and 20 years together, Paul has decided it’s time to go – he can no longer be part of this ‘world of illness’. It’s been seven years and three rounds of a hellish cancer roller coaster, a ride that he never asked to take. You can’t blame him really.
Paul dropped the bombshell about three weeks ago and I’ve been trying to get over the shock since. After a morning of me throwing up violently, he finally broke and suggested that if I want to ‘run away to become a monk with the time I had left, then he wouldn’t stop me.’ I was admitted to hospital that afternoon and later that evening came the explosion and shrapnel wounds…
My central line was hooked up to a variety of supportive therapies; fluid, pain relief etc. I lay in my hospital bed while we Skyped, and not long into the conversation Paul blurted out ‘it’s all getting too hard and if we split up then we can each just do what we want………..’ No judgement here about being so brutally open and honest – the timing on the other hand was dreadful. I guess there’s no ‘good’ time to drop something like this though.
So, I freely admit to asking for some additional pain relief in an effort to try and wipe me out from the nightmare unfolding around me. The big difference between the patient and everyone else is that others can choose to opt out – those of us with the disease can’t. Don’t try to tell me you understand.
Encore Performances 