Harsh Reality

How many times can my heart break before it shatters?

Thursday, February 11 - the day before our 43rd wedding annniversary.

I worked all day. Usually when I come home on those days Carol is sitting crocheting on the couch, Maka sleeping next to her, TV on. A beautiful, peaceful scene.

I got home to an empty house that day. Because Carol spent the entire day engaging with the medical community.

She had a zoom meeting in the morning with the surgeon who spent 20 hours operating on her face last February. Later she was off to Dartmouth-Hitchcock - a one hour drive. She had an MRI scheduled for noon; a three o'clock meeting with one of the surgeons who operated on her brain tumor.

She got home shortly after I did and filled me in about her day. 

The MRI was great news. When they operated on her brain they had to leave a tiny piece of the tumor behind because it was too risky to get it all - they ran the risk of severing a nerve in her brain. Sometimes the tumor will regenerate, sometimes it just dies. The MRI showed that it was gone.

She spoke with a surgeon who performs facial surgery about her options now. She has been considering a kind of face lift surgery that  would lift her cheek up and get her speech back to normal. The surgeon told her the surgery would not get her speech back to normal - they cannot life the face up high enough to correct for the speech.

Carol said to him - "My face will never get back to normal, will it?" The surgeon said "No".

I was in a state of shock when she told me this. I said to her "So he told you they can never repair the damage to your face?" She said "No, they can't."

My chin dropped to my chest - I could not look her in the eye -  and I sobbed silently for 20 or 30 seconds as Carol continued to fill me in.

I have learned how to swallow my tears. I realized after Carol's mastectomy and the brain surgery that people would want constant updates and if I broke down crying every time I would never get through it.

I came very close to losing it completely on Thursday because that news broke my heart. AGAIN.

She has been through so much and has fought so hard - she does not deserve this.

John O'Donahue writes: "When you love, you open your life to an Other. All your barriers are down. Your protective distances collapse. This person is given absolute permission to come into the deepest temple of your spirit."

THAT is why what Carol is going through kills me. She has taken residence in the deepest temple of my spirit.

In many ways I have lived a dangerous life. I drank heavily for many decades, did plenty of drugs, took lots of stupid chances that put me in harm's way. And I walk around at the age of 67 relatively unscathed.

But Carol gets tortured by breast cancer and a brain tumor. I do not fucking understand it, it is so unfair, and it rips me apart.

Thank god we have each other. Our love is stronger now than it has ever been.

But my heart can't take any more. If there is a god, leave Carol the fuck alone. Come after me if that makes you happy - I have no problem with that.

Carol filled my heart with love. Her medical problems threaten to shatter my heart.

This is the paradox of life.

It hurts.