"Breast Cancer Changed Our Re... Health Article

THE DIAGNOSIS THAT ROCKED A MARRIAGE

The effortless rhythm of their first five years together was about to change in ways neither anticipated. "If anything, I thought cancer would bring us closer," Judy says. Instead, each coped with the strain in different ways. "Drew was the one taking care of things; I was much more overwhelmed. I'd never had to depend on him. I wasn't used to that," Judy explains.

When she came home from the hospital with tubes still in place to drain the excess blood and fluid, for instance, Drew had to empty those drains and clean around Judy's wounds. He also took on the lion's share of parenting responsibilities. "I was so weak that I couldn't give Reese a bath," Judy recalls. "I couldn't even pick her up when she cried."

Yet despite the new burdens on him—as a partner and a parent—Drew was resolutely optimistic about their new situation. "Some people deal with things that are far worse. I just wanted to be there for Judy and Reese. I did what I had to do. I had a full plate, but I knew we would pull through."

Fortunately, Drew's company—he works in corporate staffing—was very accommodating. "I ran around trying to schedule business meetings between Judy's doctor's appointments and Reese's day care. Things were busy, but I kept reminding myself that this was a temporary situation." Still, certain new realities were hard to ignore. Of seeing Judy's chest for the first time post-surgery, Drew says, "I knew what to expect to some degree. The nipples were gone. But it's not like anything you've seen before." He emphasizes, however, that Judy's physical changes weren't important to him. "I think a lot of women with breast cancer are afraid their husbands won't find them attractive. So you have to work hard to make them not feel that way. My whole attitude was, What the hell do I have to complain about? Yes, it's terrible—but look at what she's going through. The possibility of dying supersedes everything."

AN IMPATIENT PATIENT

A self-described health nut, Judy says she secretly believed she might be spared some of chemotherapy's side effects. "I don't think I'd ever thrown up in my life, so I refused to take meds to fight the nausea. That's how stubborn I am," she says.

Hard as it was for Judy to see herself as sick, it was even tougher knowing that Drew saw her that way. She threw up eight times the night of her first treatment, and several more times the next morning. "Drew was great. He got up with me in the middle of the night; he held my hair back," she recalls. "But though I knew I should appreciate everything he was doing for me, I felt really alone sometimes. I'd never been so debilitated."

As Drew continued to pick up the slack around the house, doing laundry and taking care of Reese, Judy felt increasingly helpless. Though she worked from home when she was feeling well enough, because her immune system was compromised, for the most part, she couldn't risk going into the office or picking up her daughter at day care. "That was one of the hardest things—that I couldn't be a mom to Reese," Judy says. "My own mother left home when I was 9 years old. I couldn't stand the thought that I might be starting the cycle again. If Reese fell down, she'd cry out for 'Daddy, daddy!' And it would crush me."

Initially, Drew didn't realize how upset his wife was about her newly diminished role. "I told her, 'You're being too hard on yourself. You're a good mom, but you're going through chemotherapy for crying out loud.'" But Judy couldn't let herself off the hook. As the weeks passed, she says, she felt disconnected from the person she used to be, as well as from Drew.

"The cancer drove a wedge between us," she says now. "I didn't feel like myself or look like myself: I had no hair, my breasts were gone, I couldn't take care of my daughter. To make matters worse, I had what they call chemo brain. I was so forgetful, I had to keep detailed logs about the smallest things—'Fed Reese dinner.' It might seem anal, but I couldn't remember what I'd done from one moment to the next."

"She would go through these roller-coaster moods," Drew agrees, adding, "sometimes, they'd change so fast that I didn't know what was coming next." Judy is quick to admit that Drew bore the brunt of her frustration. "Because I was sick and had so little control, I'd rant about minor things and big things. Why can't I quit my job and stay at home? Why can't we move to a bigger house? Why can't we get a dog?"

"There were many times I thought she was being irrational," Drew acknowledges. "When a woman is pregnant and her hormones are going nuts, you learn to stay out of her way. That's what I did," he says. "I knew it was the chemo, I knew it wasn't her. But in the back of my mind, I wondered whether things would ever go back to normal or if this was the new Judy."

Judy wrestled with similar fears, not only about herself but also about her marriage. "You know when you've had a bit to drink, and you sometimes say the wrong thing, but there's some truth in it? That's what it felt like. I was so critical of Drew, and I hated myself for it. But I also worried: Is this how I really feel? I wanted him to express his own frustration more, even if that meant getting mad at me or at the situation."

Drew had his own reasons for keeping his feelings to himself. "If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't have wanted my spouse to complain to me ," he says. "My attitude is, it doesn't help to always think and talk about the cancer. I'd rather try to take her mind off it, to go to a movie or out to dinner just to do something normal. We love sushi, for example, and we used to eat it a lot when we were dating. So we ate more sushi during this time. Judy would always order a dynamite roll. The dynamite rolls made us both feel better."