February Pain-Blog Carnival is Up at How to Cope With Pain

This is a fairly new blog carnival that focuses on pieces about pain, illness, and strategies for coping. Have a look at this month's posts (including one of mine).

Grand Rounds is Up at ScienceRoll

Have a look at this week's Grand Rounds offerings. Bertalan Mesko, writer of the blog ScienceRoll, did a great job of presenting posts on topics like medicine and media, medical research, and health worker stories. I am honored that my post on illness and divorce was included.

Are Certain Illnesses More Likely to Lead to Divorce?

Couples who are dealing with the illness of one partner know well the emotional, physical, financial, social, sexual, and spiritual toll that can take. Some couples find that the struggle to adapt raises them to higher levels of awareness and intimacy. Some couples find that the stresses inherent in this situation fray the tethers that hold them together to the breaking point, and beyond.

I had thought that how a couple weathers illness depends more on the people involved than on the nature of the illness. However, a recent study (reported by Reuters) by some Norwegian researchers presented at the European Cancer Conference in Barcelona found that there are two types of cancer that increase the risk of divorce -- testicular cancer or cervical cancer.

"The research compared divorce rates of 215,000 cancer survivors with those among couples free of cancer over a 17-year period. Women with cervical cancer had nearly a 70 percent greater risk of divorce at the age of 20, a level that fell to 19 percent at 60. For testicular cancer, the divorce risk was 34 percent at 20 and 16 percent at 60, it said.

The reason could be because both diseases affect intimacy and result in decreased sexual activity, said Astri Syse of the Norwegian Cancer Registry, who led the study. Age was another possible factor, because both cancers tended to hit people when they were younger and had not yet forged strong bonds, Syse said."

This made me want to ask the question of readers and fellow bloggers -- are there aspects of the specific type of illness you and your partner are living with (or lived with) that are particularly difficult to deal with? I'd be very interested in your thoughts about this.

What do Presidents' Day Weekend and Science Fiction Films Have in Common?

When Richard and I first started dating, he forewarned me that he would never be available on Presidents' Day weekend. That is his one inviolate, sacred holiday. Not because he honors those particular presidents, but because that is when the annual twenty-four hour science fiction film festival takes place - from Sunday noon to Monday noon. Yes 24 hours in a dark theater watching sci-fi films from silent 1920's movies like the Russian film Aelita: Queen of Mars, to 1950's Red Menace sub-plot movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to 1960's trippy movies like 2001; A Space Odyssey, to 1970's favorites like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars; to new releases like Cloverfield.

For several years I wheedled and enticed and whined to try to shift Richard towards abandoning this silly practice and to spending a three day weekend with me in some quaint Vermont inn. He was immovable. I finally decided that the only way I could understand his devotion was to experience it for myself. That way I would be able to mock it more knowledgeably.

I got hooked. For the next fifteen years, I sat by his side amidst a crowd of antennae wearing, ray gun zapping humanoids sitting in the dark for 24 hours as the films rolled on and on. And while I don't love sci-fi films, I do enjoy the view they offer into an era's perspective on the future, on values, relationships, politics, and the enemy. And I do love the ritual of it all.

I stopped going to the festival ten years ago when I first got whacked with a chronic pain condition. This was one of many losses that stood as a marker for how much pain was taking from my life.

This year, on President's Day weekend, I went to the sci-fi film marathon and stayed for the entire twenty-four hours. In fact, I am writing this posting in the immediate dazed, achy, sleep deprived afterglow. I did have some ripples of pain during the marathon, but more importantly, I was back in the saddle (or the very uncomfortable theater seat), next to my sweetie, holding his hand, munching on carrot sticks, and happily traveling to a "galaxy far, far away."

Happy Belated Valentine's Day: The Love Hormone??

From UPI:

"U.S. researchers say the "love hormone" or oxytocin, which releases during hugs or when a mother bonds with a newborn, may help mental disorders.

Dr. Kai MacDonald of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine says oxytocin is a brain chemical associated with pair bonding, including mother-infant and male-female bonds and increased paternal involvement with children. "

And here I thought it was chocolate.....

Grand Rounds is Up at HealthBlawg

David Harlow's excellent health care law blog (Healthblawg) is hosting this week's Grand Rounds which focuses on, what else, Valentine's Day themes. Have a look. My post on Palpitations is included. Thanks David.

Palpitations

Richard, my sweetie, started having frequent heart palpitations a few weeks ago. His cardiologist discovered that he has a bicuspid valve where a tricuspid valve should be. His blood was sloshing back and forth where it should have been flowing unimpeded to its next destination. His heart was working harder and growing bigger. And while I always thought of his heart as boundless and inexhaustible, in a medical sense, a big heart is not a good thing. The concern barometer is now turning in Richard's direction. The words heart medication and cardiac surgery have entered the landscape of our relationship.

I was used to being the patient. My body and its slips and slides had been the gating factor determining when Richard and I could travel, visit friends, go to a movie, and do the things "normals" do without calculation or consequence. My chronic pain had become the fulcrum on which our relationship balanced. Richard would look up at me and ask me, "How are you doing?" which was code for "Are you having any pain? Because if you are, I will know how to modulate my part in this relationship. I won't bring up heavy issues or suggest a hike. I will postpone my needs until you are feeling better."

This is how a partnership of equals devolved into an distorted triangle where pain came first, me second, and Richard a distant third. Did I enjoy the privilege pain afforded me? Yes and no. Luckily, Richard cared unconditionally and wanted to do things to make a smile appear on my strained and melancholy face. My needs ruled. But the power pain afforded me also stripped me of a sense of real competence. Weakness, vulnerability, and inability became the cornerstones of my authority. And while they offered me control in the external world, they cost me my identity as an intelligent, worldly, empathetic, capable and funny person. Not a very good deal.

And now, Richard is moving into the patient realm. He is still fully functioning, but he gets disturbing heart flutters. When this happens, we both freeze and fix our attention on his chest like hound dogs pointing at wounded prey. I need to be thoughtful, rational, and adaptable. My patient persona is of no value in this new equation.

Couples, especially long term ones, are so intertwined in practical, emotional, and magical ways. We finish each other's sentences. We phone each at the same moment. Like a ballet duo we dance through household routines without bumping into each other. I can tell by the way Richard breathes what is on his mind. He can understand what the slightest tightening of my face signifies.

Richard stayed strong and healthy while I was the sick one. Now I am doing pretty well, and he is having distressing cardiac symptoms. When I was sick, Richard discovered emotional capabilities he didn't know he had. Is it now my turn to polish my tarnished identity and become a healthy, competent adult again?

Maybe in our next phase we can learn to dance again as we did before pain, as equal partners, complementing each other, sharing the load, without illness as our mediator.

Vic and Toni: A Story About Cancer and Love

Here's a story from Freep (the Detroit Free Press online) about a couple who has learned to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses before and during illness.

"After 22 years of marriage, cancer has provided Vic and Toni Mounts an unlikely new chapter that Toni calls 'our new normal.' Cancer, and a love story."

The title of the story: Cancer took his voice, but couple communicates better than ever

I couldn't help but read it and smile, ...initially. Then I began to wonder -- where are the sharp edges? the darkness? the petty aggravations?

The silent moments create the rhythm in the music. The empty spaces give the sculpture depth and movement. The struggles are the crucible in which the relationship can strengthen its bonds.

Am I being too cynical? Maybe Vic and Toni are one of the lucky couples who fit together from the start and let true love guide them the rest of the way.

Article On How To Talk About Serious Illness

From a very clear, interesting article, Boomer Couples: Deepening Your Conversations About Illness

"Dialoging with your partner in the midst of a health crisis often reflects rather typical differences between men and women - particularly in what they want from each other. Whereas a woman may need to be heard and understood, a man may be intent on finding a solution to the problem.

The result is that, even though your partner wants to be supportive when you are sick, you may be surprised to find that it is difficult for him to talk with you about your deepest thoughts and worries. This can lead to conversations that are not authentic and that make you feel your emotions are being discounted."

The article goes on to list seven types of struggles couples can get into.