Can’t have a good story without complications

Remember that old Fredric March movie, Death Takes a Holiday? I have a new one for you: Fate Takes a Dump.

Yeah, I know: nothing original about Fate taking a dump. But when it happens to you for the first time, it feels pretty damned original. It plays havoc with your world view, too.

Winter break, 1983, six months before our marriage, Karen and I drove down to Los Angeles to hang out with my family. A few days into our vacation, she developed areas of spreading numbness in her right leg and left arm. I only had three months of med school under my belt but I knew this couldn’t be good.

I took her to the Methodist Hospital ER, and after that, everything happened awfully damned fast. Someone stuck an IV in her and hung a bag of something. Karen asked, “What’s that?” and the nurse told her, “That’s to shrink the tumor.”

I’m not kidding.

I know now that her doc thought she had cancer with metastases to the spine. At the time, we were scared silly because everyone was treating us really nice. They set Karen up for a myelogram (this was in the days before MRI, and I guess the CT didn’t tell them what they wanted to know) and they asked me if I wanted to stay the night.

It’s fair to say that this is all a blur. Next thing I remember is a certain first-degree family member suggesting I rethink my marriage plans. The phrase damaged goods bubbles to the surface.

I’m really not kidding.

Eventually, Karen’s doc realized (A) she didn’t have cancer, and (B) she probably had multiple sclerosis. At the time, they had no way of knowing for sure. The diagnosis was made largely on clinical presentation and she hadn’t had MS long enough for anyone to be convinced.

Karen flew back home with one ripping spinal headache and I drove back by myself. She was awfully sick for at least a couple of weeks, whether from the MS flare or the myelogram, I don’t know. Maybe a bit of both.

Some weeks later I got another call from a certain family member who echoed first-degree-family-member-#1’s sentiments. I.e., maybe I should think again about this marriage thing.

I expected this from first-degree family member #1. That’s how that person is. I didn’t expect it to come from another quarter, and I didn’t appreciate it, either. Consider that an understatement.

Karen resisted, too. She tried her best to push me away but I wouldn’t be pushed. We had our first knock-down drag-out arguments over this, and I’m happy to say I won. I haven’t won a single argument since, but that’s the one that mattered most.

Please understand: I’m not looking for praise. Then and now, it would feel like I was being complimented for not pushing a blind man off a cliff. There are some things you just don’t do. You don’t abandon a loved one, ever, particularly in her time of need. You don’t do that. It is not an option. Maybe it’s an option if you’re Newt Gingrich (who discussed divorce terms with his wife while she was still in the hospital recovering from surgery for breast cancer), but not for me.

I’d like to say that getting over this initial hurdle was the toughest part for Karen and me, but it wasn’t. We had a grueling six years ahead of us, but of course we couldn’t know that. Funny thing about MS: the course is unpredictable. Walking into this, we didn’t know if this flare would be her last ever, the start of a series of flares (so-called relapsing/remitting MS), or the beginning of the end (chronic progressive MS).

Being pessimists at heart, we assumed we had little time together. Neither of us would have believed the truth: 22 years, still going strong (knockingonwood knockingonwood knockingonwood), and with a 10-year-old boy, too. A family.

Those individuals who didn’t want me marrying “damaged goods”: in your face.

‘Cuz you were expecting a wedding story today, I don’t want you to be too disappointed. Here’s my gal with some icky-looking shaved-chin dude walking her down the aisle.

D.

Walnut, June 29, 2006. Category: Love, Memoirist BS, Mishpucha (mi familia).

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