Chronic Pain & Couples: Learning to Find Each Other in the Shadows

coryphella on flickr

For couples, when illness lingers and turns our path towards a dark unknown, we start to become shadows to each other.

The present is too often a fragmented reflection of what used to be. The invitations we can't accept, the activities we can't do, the conversations we don't want to be part of are reminders of a brighter time in our life that now stands in the shadow of illness. When I was living with uncontrolled pain, my days were consumed in attempts to stay just a few inches ahead of the next spike. A sunny morning, the aroma of coffee, or a good book, had no meaning. Cheery news from a friend was almost unbearable.

As I moved farther away from life, into the shadows of illness, I drifted to a realm where Richard could not follow. He could watch and reach out towards me, but he could not enter. He didn't have the right ticket, and I had no return.

We started becoming shadows to each other, our vitality dimmed by all those sweet things we could no longer hold onto. When he looked at my face he saw the gray mask of illness. My eyes no longer focused on the world and only offered him flashes of someone he once knew. Every time he left the house to go to work or the gym or have dinner with a friend, I felt relief at his remaining connected to normalcy; but each venture broadened the shadowland that was growing between us.

I think had we not had such a long history together, and had we not already learned to face one another and speak the hardest truths, we would have lost each other. The shadows would have eventually rendered us unrecognizable.

How did we learn to keep finding each other?

We never learned to dispel the shadows, but we found ways of creating new venues where we could see each other more clearly. Places that had no ties to our earlier times and were therefore immune to a gathering of shadows.

We learned to sit in silence together. Our old life was one of activity. Now, in silence, we could slow down enough to feel something essential for each other, something that endured.

We discovered the small things that gave us comfort. Our old life was about big things -- vacations, climbing mountains, work achievements. Now Richard stroked my hair and read aloud Jane Austin or Tolkien. When I prepared the colorless, bland foods I could eat, I offered him some. When he was at work, he texted me to let me know he was thinking of me and hoping I was having an ok day. I texted him to let him know when I had good moments. On Sunday nights at 9:00pm, no matter how uncomfortable I was, we watched the Sopranos.

We spoke about our fears of losing each other. And each time we did, naming the fear diminshed it.

We learned to build bridges to each other, above the shadows.

On: Sexual Health; Food for Women; Grand Rounds; Pain Carnival

Here are a few interesting blog posts that were emailed to me:

From Nursing Degree.net a post on 53 Surprising Facts About Your Sexual Health and another post on 100 Best Foods for Women.

And while you're at it - Grand Rounds is up at Rural Doctoring.

And the August Pain Carnival is up at How to Cope with Pain.

Grand Rounds at Six Until Me

Kerri at Six Until Me did a great job at this week's Grand Rounds. Please check it out.

When Illness Begets Illness: A Story About Breast Cancer

Five years ago Dave began experiencing headaches for the first time in his life. He attributed the headaches to increases in stress at work. Then he began slurring words and feeling low grade nausea. His doctor diagnosed a brain tumor. Janie, his wife, stayed by his side during the entire ordeal of surgery, chemotherapy, and, eventually recovery. They live "on alert," watching for signs of a recurrence.

Two years ago, Janie was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy, followed by several rounds of radiation. Her prognosis for recovery from this cancer is excellent.

However, her surgeon decided to do a largely unused form of reconstructive surgery. He took some muscles and tissue from her abdomen. Janie, a good patient, pleased with the cancer prognosis, did not research or ask questions about this method of reconstruction.

The newly fashioned breast looked good enough, but Janie was left with chronic abdominal pain. She began to take pain pills.

The story goes on.

The abdominal surgery soon resulted in a hernia, which required further surgery.

The hernia surgery, left behind a gnarled, twisted root system of scar tissue in her intestine.

Her pain is now intense, for most of the day, every day. She is chronically constipated and is now taking the last in the series of drugs available to help push waste through her constricted intestines. She has started having panic attacks. She sees that she is on a path that is heading towards a colostomy and can't tolerate the thought of undergoing more surgery.

This is the story of a couple delighted to have found each other after unhappy first marriages. For years they worked, jogged, played music, and raised a child. They remained loving and supportive through his brain cancer and her breast cancer. They still held hands and stroked each others' hair in the aftermath of her botched surgeries.

Hope has propelled them along. They are not in their 80s. They are not even in their 60s. They are in their late 50s. They had every right to expect health tranquility for another few decades. And when illness intruded, they had faith in doctors, in medicine, and in a bountiful trajectory of life that provides renewal for each incidence of sorrow, until the end.

But they have lived in their current hell for too long now. They see no path to renewal. Their love is strained and may not be able to offer them a solid bridge between panic attacks for much longer.

They have been each others' salvation for so long that they do not know how to take care of themselves as separate individuals. When the stress of illness is so severe and prolonged, it is critical that each partner put in place a support platform for him or herself. When being together pulls each partner down into a vortex of fear, depression, and uncertainty, each person needs to create a separate safety zone that can provide some nourishment. That zone can include friends, work, activities, therapy, meditation, time in the woods or by a river.

Sometimes, in desperate circumstances, partners have to stand alone in order to hold each other up.

Love and Healing

A while ago I interviewed a Jungian analyst about the topic of couples and illness. He bypassed practical advice and moved quickly to the realm of the transcendent. He talked about love. Not specifically romantic or sexual love but love as a creative act -- one that opens up the possibility of bringing new forms and new potential into being. "Love brings to being that which is not -- love creates," he said, and can therefore contribute in untold ways to healing.

Here is a surprising story about love. Tell me if you don't feel a sense of possibility after watching this.