{"id":58095,"date":"2020-06-19T15:08:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/family\/how-illness-in-family-affected-my-marriage\/"},"modified":"2023-02-22T10:02:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T10:02:10","slug":"how-illness-in-family-affected-my-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/family\/how-illness-in-family-affected-my-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"How Coping With Illness in Family Affected My Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"AfricanWhen The Marital Mystery Tour went to press, Alan and I had no way of anticipating the trial that lay ahead of us.<\/span> This is the story of God’s faithfulness toward us through the fire of that ordeal.<\/b><\/p>\n

That fire began in a hospital waiting room at 9:30 p.m. on September 4, 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan and I were awaiting the results of our son Josh’s abdominal surgery. Accompanied by a hospital chaplain, colorectal surgeon Dr. Debora McClary entered and said, “This didn’t go anything as I expected.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joshua is full of cancer.” Alan and I collapsed against each other and cried.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then 31 years old, Josh was preparing to deploy for Iraq with his National Guard unit. But following a rear-end collision in his car, he experienced unrelenting abdominal pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

He suspected that the impact of the airbag created a fistula, a tear in the fragile tissues between his intestines and his bowel. Plagued for years by ulcerative colitis, Josh had worked hard to overcome his digestive issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fearful of hindering his ability to deploy, he had avoided seeing a doctor, but obviously, to Alan and me, he was ill — feverish and doubled over with pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

We insisted that he get examined, and the Lord led us to the skilled and compassionate Dr. McClary. She recognized Josh’s serious condition and canceled a meeting to see him.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the exam, I asked if we could pray. She said yes. I prayed and then looked up to see Dr. McClary kneeling before Josh with her hand on his knee.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lord knew we would need a strong Christian physician to walk with us through what was to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

We discussed worst-case outcomes. Josh dreaded a possible <\/span>colostomy<\/span><\/a>, the removal of the most damaged portion of his colon and rerouting through an opening in his abdomen to allow his diseased gut and rectum to heal.<\/span><\/p>\n

We never suspected that his colitis had already led to the insidious spread of a thin layer of cancer. It had avoided detection through ordinary medical exams, yet it had overtaken most of the digestive tissues below his belly button.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dreaded colostomy bag became the least of Josh’s worries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The details of Josh’s battle with cancer could fill volumes: how angry he was with us for waiting from 10:30 p.m. until 4 a.m. to tell him the diagnosis, not knowing he had heard the word “cancer” whispered in the recovery room.<\/span><\/p>\n

How we learned together to change his colostomy bags and clean his stoma; how chemotherapy made him suicidal; how desperately he sought naturopathic treatments for his disease; how he tried to get by with as little pain medication as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

How pain would overwhelm him until he was scrunched up writhing on the floor; how he broke things in anger at his pain; how we cried; yet how he was still able to make me laugh until his last day on earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

And how it ended at 2:20 a.m. on July 22, 2010, when the Lord lifted Josh’s spirit away from his tired, broken body and brought him home.<\/span><\/p>\n

However,<\/span> this article is about marriage, and we want to describe what the Lord has done in Alan and me through the challenges of that battle.<\/b><\/p>\n

Backtracking<\/h2>\n

\"ManOur life was exceptionally chaotic at the time when Josh’s cancer appeared.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three years earlier, hoping to get in on the ground level of marriage ministry in a young community, Alan and I had purchased a new house in a pristine planned development 40 miles west of where we had spent the prior 25 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blinded by the stars in our eyes, we slid onto financially thin ice. We kept our former home as a rental but had trouble keeping it occupied. When tenants moved out, we had to cover two mortgages plus homeowners association fees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then our nonprofit organization, Walk &amp; Talk, lost a major donor, and the seminary where Alan worked part-time eliminated his position.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our new community’s growth shrank with the economy and our hopes for planting a church and <\/span>growing a ministry there dissipated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The longer commute in interstate freeway traffic driving to my job as an associate magazine editor took its toll on my health. Diagnosed with <\/span>Multiple Sclerosis<\/span><\/a> in 2004, I was becoming physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted by work-related stress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan drove an even-longer commute. To reduce expenses, we sold his car. He drove me to work and picked me up. Often I was too exhausted to fix dinner. Alan did more meal preparation and cleanup, and I felt guilty about letting him do it.<\/span><\/p>\n

MS affected my cognitive abilities and short-term memory, making me error-prone at work. And my job was to correct errors, not make them!<\/b><\/p>\n

Advised by Human Resources to seek disability benefits, I bid the magazine and my beloved coworker’s good-by in August 2008. We lost half my income and gained responsibility for 100 percent of our health insurance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan tried to refinance the new house to no avail. In desperation, we listed it with a realtor specializing in short sales, truly a humbling experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were relieved when the bank approved a buyer and started preparing for our move back into Phoenix, which we planned to do when our tenants’ lease expired in the fall. It was early August 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

In January, just eight months earlier, I had shot a photo of Josh leaning against his royal blue Honda Prelude, happy and confident. He had recently returned from a year as a government contractor in Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n

He had money in the bank and a zillion options for his future. His National Guard unit had been ordered to deploy while he was overseas. He had nine months to prepare to return to Iraq, saying that he needed to “get healthy.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Churning beneath his macho exterior, Josh’s colon gave him little peace, and he tried one alternative treatment after another.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was running late driving to a naturopathy session when the driver in front of him hit his brakes at a yellow light as Josh was gunning to run it. It was August 17, 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

Testing the knots<\/h2>\n

Isaiah 43:2-3a says:<\/span><\/p>\n

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Nor will the flame burn you.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For I am the LORD your God,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Through the months of <\/span>coping with illness (<\/span>Josh’s cancer) and since his death, every key principle Alan and I discussed in The Marital Mystery Tour has been tested, tried, and proven in our marriage.<\/span><\/p>\n