A PRESENTATION

BY CODY CAMBRIDGE

My purpose in creating this slide presentation is to try convey to people with chronically ill spouses that they can still live rich, full, and happy lives and have a very strong relationship with their spouse. In many ways having a sick spouse can “make you or break you”, hopefully everyone who reads this will realize it CAN “make you!”

When I was dating my wife we had so many adventures. When we were together we would laugh and sing and climb mountains and it felt like nothing could stop us. After my wife and I had been dating a while she started to get sick. Week by week she seemed to get worse and worse and the woman that I fell in love with had become so sick it was hard for her to do much of anything. We didn’t want this to stop us so we got married anyway. I won’t get into detail much at this time about her exact health problems however, she has something that is called interstitial cystitis which has cause many other problems including things like stomach ulcers, major diet restrictions, bladder ulcers, depression from being sick all the time and much much more. Before this she was also suffering from gall bladder issues, Thyroid issues and a few other things. Here are some of the things I have learned in my experiences.

The following slides are both composed of things that I have learned through trial and error and also from people, life-coaches, and things I have read. I do not claim ownership of all the ideas in this presentation.

Before my wife and I got married I was working at a transitional rehab facility. It was a place where people stayed while recovering from different types of surgery and there they had daily physical therapy sessions. On one particular day I overheard a conversation that was happening between a therapist and her patient. They were talking about relationships and the therapist used the word “divorce.” Very quickly and sharply her patient said “If you want to keep your marriage don’t say the ‘d’ word.”

Ever since that day I have thought about what that lady said. I find that logic to be very useful in many circumstances. By using the “d” word you are letting you and your spouse have an out rather than working out your problems and becoming a stronger couple. Now don’t get me wrong there is a time that the “d” word is needed however what I am trying to convey is that when it is not an option in your mind, it pushes people to work things out and become their best selves.

Something I had to learn really fast was when you are un able to make it, its okay. My wife’s condition makes it extremely hard to leave the house sometimes. Often times she is caught up in the bathroom for several hours due to the interstitial cystitis. This was very hard for me at first. My mind would sometimes try to feel justified in getting angry but I had to keep reminding myself that she can’t control that she is chronically ill. It took many missed and wasted movie theater tickets, concerts, and family events for me to realize that it was okay to miss them and it was not worth getting mad about, especially since my wife already was feeling bad about making me miss them.

In the beginning of our marriage my wife went to many doctors to try and figure out solutions to her illnesses. After trying out many doctors we even when to see a homeopathic doctor. He had us try some of the craziest diets I never thought I would do. Since my wife was ill it was really hard for her to follow these diets because it took a lot of meal prep time and everything was from scratch. We weren’t able to eat anything processed, no sugars, dairy, wheat or corn, many vegetables were “out” and a lot more. …

It was really hard at first because I wanted to support my wife, however, “I wasn’t sick, why do I have to do it?” Once I got over myself I started the diet when she did. Every day I would prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner that we would both eat so that she would have an easier time adjusting to this new diet. It was one of the hardest changes I have ever made but in order for my wife to start feeling better, I had to drive. I have had to be the driving force on some things because when you are sick….its hard enough to be doing just the normal day to day routine of living.

I have always felt like I have been a patient person, however, its funny how life seems to test you on what you think you are good at. A few of the symptoms of interstitial cystitis are urine retention, painful urination, and over active bladder. In other words to be quite frank, my wife has a hard time emptying out when she uses the rest room, sometimes it takes 3 or 4 hours. When she would try and go it is always painful, and worst of all her bladder ALWAYS feels full. From everything that I have read about it people say it feels a lot like a urinary tract infection after you just drank a 70 ounce lemonade…. Then hold it…..keep holding it….

For some reason night time was always the worst. (I am definitely not a night time person) Often we would start our night time routine at about 10 p.m., you know the usual… brush your teeth, change in to pajamas, use the restroom. More nights than not our night time routine would take until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. In the beginning I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want her to be alone in the bathroom all night (that’s depressing) but I needed to sleep. This is something that we are still working on however we have made the best out of our situation. Patience was require but I began to do…

…homework in the bathroom with her. We would watch movies, laugh, joke and just spend time with together. It wasn’t the most comfortable at first but after some time we feel we have learned more about one another in two years than most people have learned about each other in a lifetime. I can’t control my spouses bladder… how long will it take? I have no idea. I do know that I now have the patience to still be happy about our time together.

This is something that I learned from my life coach and I’m unsure where he learned it. It is a very simple principle to learn but extremely hard to keep in mind and live. In regards to your relationship with your spouse you should expect to do 95% of everything and for your spouse to do only 5%. THAT’S CRAZY!!!! But its true. If you expect only 5% from your spouse then you will never be angry with them. Hopefully your spouse is also living by this rule so that he or she only expect 5% from you too. These expectations are so hard to break in our mind…

…Most people have been raised with the expectations that my wife will do “this” or my husband will do “that” and when they don’t end up doing that all that gets harbored is resentment and anger. Why live with that? Nobody is perfect. The sooner we stop expecting the people of our relationships to meet a certain criteria is the day that we can let go and become even better ourselves. This relates a lot to people who have sick spouses. If you only expect that 5%, then you will be a lot happier when they give what they can and it ends up being 25% or 40% or on some days 200%.

At many times in a relationship things may feel hopeless, but that doesn’t mean that we should hope any “less.” Hope and positive attitudes is sometimes all we have and that can be enough to make the difference. While pursuing treatment for my wife’s condition we started out with a general practitioner, then to another, then to many specialists. One after another left us feeling hopeless. We tried countless procedures, treatments, pills, and surgeries with very little change. We noticed that as our spirits dropped and as our hope failed, my wife got sicker. However, once we started…

…taking her health more into our own hands we started seeing some improvement. I started researching online about every night, when we would go to doctors appointments we began to tell the doctors what we wanted done and what we wanted to try rather than them telling us there is nothing we can do. We took hope into our own hands. We hoped more. The power of the mind is an amazing thing. It can make you depressed or it can make you happy. It can make you hope”less” or hope”more.” Why not treat your relationship to hope more so that there can be joy and happiness.

I have heard that one of the leading causes of divorce or un happy marriages is financial trouble. When your spouse is ill money only becomes more of a problem. This is one problem I never thought would happen to me, but it did. Because of my wife’s condition she was un-able to work, and since I am currently a full time student I was not working enough to get insurance coverage through my company. This posed a serious problem. On average her medications were costing about $1000 dollars a month and her doctors appointments and procedures combined last year …

…costed a roughly $50,000. Yikes! That was a lot of cash for two newly weds with little to no cash to begin with. Like other times we had to find help, our parents obviously couldn’t help us with that kind of money so we searched for help from various places. We ended up getting discounts on medications from the manufacturers and the hospital which we attended helped us with financial aid. Overall, I can’t say it wasn’t difficult or expensive. However, it could have been a lot worse. What I am trying to say is that medical expenses can break a marriage. They can ….

…truly place an extra weight on the marriage so heavy that most people will collapse into financial ruin or at least marital ruin. Moral of the story is that there is help out there. There are many organizations that are willing to help you, but the trick is you have to find them, they for the most part won’t find you. Between hospital financial aid, medication discounts, and help from family and friends, this load can be a lot less heavy with help.

One of the hardest things for my wife is beating the feeling of being inadequate or less of a person because so much of her life is consumed by her illness. This next tip kind of just fell into place for us but here is an example of what we did to help the situation. My wife is amazing at crafts. She has taught herself about everything there is to know regarding hand made skills. She has learned how to paint, sew, knit, crochet, make jewlery, take pictures, photoshop, floral design, and honestly probably hundreds of others that I am leaving out. When her illness hit suddenly on many occasions she spend on average of 8 hours in the bathroom a….

….day. She began to feel un-productive and under achieved. This is going to sound really weird, but it helped us a lot. One day when she was gone I set up a desk for her in the bathroom. Luckily our bathroom was pretty spacy so it fit very nicely. On the desk there was a lamp, power outlet, a shelf. Underneath I had drawers that she could put some thing in for her crafts. She was able to feel useful again because she was creating. She was staying busy. This created a way for her to use her skill daily even if no one ever saw them, she did, and that has made all the difference.

There are so many things that can get in the way in your relationship with your spouse. Whether it is illness, or work, or any other combination of events. The bottom line is there are ways to be happy and to have a successful relationship. I am so grateful for the experiences that my wife and I have had because now we are able to be a stronger couple. There is nothing that can tear us apart. I hope this slideshow was helpful to anyone who reads it.