A Young Wife’s Tale

When my husband and I were engaged, my mother told me, “I don’t care whether or not you go for pre-marital counseling. Nothing can prepare you for marriage.” She was right, but not even my mother knew the challenges my husband and I would face in our marriage.

On July 8, we celebrated five years of marriage. Those five years have been dominated by health problems. It started off with my health. I had severe TMJ Disorder and a knee injury. Then in our second year of marriage, my husband, David, was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis. Although he was being treated, he continued to get worse until our third year of marriage when he began experiencing flares that left him bedridden for days at a time.

I am a stereotype.

I was born and raised in the Dallas area.

I received a calf for my third birthday (and it wasn’t from my parents).

I worked for an oil and gas company for over six years.

For me, being a wife to a chronically ill husband is like being a communication device. Maybe not all men have trouble communicating, but David definitely has a hard time verbalizing his pain and suffering. It’s actually one of the most frustrating aspects of having a husband with an invisible chronic illness. I get really angry when David doesn’t tell me he’s hurting. I get so upset when someone at church asks him to help move heavy furniture and he does it instead of saying, “Sorry, I can’t.” It’s like he wants to be the strong, silent type.

Today is Day 2 of the SITS Girls Back to Blogging event. Thank you to the event sponsors Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath and Florida Builder Appliances. Today’s assignment is to re-upload a post you wish more people had read and explain why it was important to you.

I originally published this on October 23, 2009, and called it, “I Didn’t Kill My Husband”.

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I didn’t kill my husband. Let me just get that out there. David is alive. And so am I. For that we are truly thankful.

Things got pretty ugly last night. David gave himself his third Humira injection. You may recall the first injection occurred at the rheumatologist’s office. The nurse helped David give it to himself. The second one was two weeks ago at home, and it took him about an hour to do it. We were screaming at each other.

This is my first blog post. It was originally published on April 25, 2009.

I went for a physical a few weeks ago. My most dreaded day of the year. The doctor spent the entire time talking to me about David’s arthritis. He was really nice and encouraging. He had great advice, but when I got in the car afterwards, I couldn’t help but think, “Hey! That was my physical! Why were we talking about David?”