SWMBO Update

SWMBO and I have been the "Significant Other" (SO) in each other's lives for the past fourteen years. We have never married, in part because we have each lived alone for so long that it's difficult for us to give up the 'private space' which we have each enjoyed since before we met. It's a personal decision which our mutual friends questioned. It doesn't mean that we love each other less than any of our married friends do. In fact, she is the love of my life and the woman with whom I wish to spend the rest of my life.

Several months ago (to recap), SWMBO suffered a bad 'Spring Cold', with a cough that hung on long after the cold departed. The doctors decided it was a form of Pneumonia and prescribed antibiotics. When these failed to alleviate the discomfort, the dosage was doubled. Finally, She - Who Must Be Obeyed, was subject to various medical procedures (biopsy) to determine the exact nature of the problems in her lungs which caused her to be lethargic, without energy or stamina, subject to a continuing 'non-productive' cough.

During this period she did not feel well enough to attend competitions, as was our habit for over a decade. Instead, she stayed home while I continued to compete. Our friends and acquaintances would see me at matches and ask how she was doing. I would reply with news of the current course of treatment, and then relay to her their best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.

The rest is difficult to write. I'll just give it to you straight.

Ten days ago her doctor performed a 'needle biopsy' which was finally successful in gathering enough material so that they could determine the cause of her malaise.

She received the diagnosis last Tuesday, July 29, 2008.

They were wrong, all along. It wasn't pneumonia, in any form.

SWMBO will begin a course of chemotherapy sometime after the appointment with her Oncologist tomorrow morning.

The biopsy determined that she has cancer in both lungs. It is at Stage 1. It is inoperable.

(More information about stages of lung cancer here.)

The doctors so far refuse to offer her an encouraging prognosis. We hope that the Oncologist will be willing and able to prescribe a course of chemotherapy which has the possibility of slowing, even delaying, the progress of the disease. SWMBO wants to be able to refer to herself as "A Cancer Survivor". I want that, too.

I would not have been surprised to discover that I had Lung Cancer. I smoke cigarettes. She doesn't. I don't smoke around her, except when we're outside in the open, where she won't have to breath it. Somehow, it hardly seems fair. Most of this doesn't seem fair. None of it seems fair. Fairness doesn't seem to have much to do with it.

I would not impose this discouraging news in such a public forum, except that SWMBO's circle of friends is so wide-spread that it is impossible for me to otherwise inform all of them of her medical condition. And again, at every match her many friends ask me of her progress.

Frankly, I'm just not tough enough to stand in the middle of a shooting range and one at a time tell our friends that Sandie (SWMBO, when she's at home) -- who begins every match by hugging everybody who stops by to say good morning -- will not be joining us for the foreseeable future.

But I won't say 'not ever'.

The past five days have been difficult for us. Besides dealing with her personal fears and doubts, SWMBO had to tell me (last Tuesday), and watch me virtually fall apart. After I had got my head and my heart around it, she has had to tell her family, her employer, and her co-workers. Nobody is taking it well.

I have told most of my family, who regard her in the same way as they would if we were legally married. I have told my co-workers (who know her only as 'that paragon of Virtue that Jerry keeps talking about since he started working here'), and they were very supportive.

In fact, they were so solicitous that I finally had to tell them "Thank you for your concern, and for your support and your prayers. But right now, I'm still dealing with the first stage of 'dealing with it' and it's hard not to be emotional. I would rather not talk about it. Please just let me do my job, and I'll say more when and as I can."

In the meantime, SWMBO and I have spend a lot of time talking about the dramatic changes which this diagnosis presages for not only her physical condition, but for the quality of life changes she can expect.

Her doctor recommends that she quit her job "right away". She has no other income, she has no way to pay her basic bills without working, and even if she quits immediately and draws her pension, it will be 92 days before she can receive any pension benefits. Quitting her job means that she will have to pay her own health insurance (a fiscal impossibility) or go on Medicare ... with lessened medical options than under her existing health plan.

The questions we face are unanswered, and at the moment almost as debilitating as the disease promises to be.

The only way we can deal with them is to decide that we are not going to be 'morbid' about this ... this thing which threatens to overwhelm us emotionally.

What do I say next? I don't know how to write this, but we want to live our lives to the fullest every day, taking God's grace as it comes. We are going to beat this, one way or another, and if we have to live on little more than her indomitable will and personal strength and determination, we will do so without flinching.

Without flinching ... much.

We spent this weekend together enjoying our own company. We went to a movie, we went shopping, we had Roast Beef for dinner, we watched some bad Cable TV, we watched some favorite old movies. This is how we will continue, just living from day to day as best we can.

And I will blog, writing as if there are no clouds above.

To some of you, it may seem as if I am indifferent.

Those of you who know how much we love each other will understand. We have always been the two who walk hand in hand. We are still hand in hand. We are determined to maintain ourselves with the things that fulfill our lives. We will not, either of us, give up ONE THING that we can do and can enjoy, so long as it is possible.

To those of you who offer prayers, thank you. We'll take all we can get. Those who would suggest that "God does not send us any more than we can handle" ... well, I hope you're right. To those of you who have already responded: yes, we will continue to "Stay Positive". And thank you for your understanding.

We may not be able to beat Cancer. But it will not beat us.

Still, we bought a lot of hankies this week.