Jeff A.

About Jeff A.

My husband Jeff was already the best example of manhood I know. He’s the best friend, partner and father I could ask for.

When he was diagnosed with cancer we assumed it was a blip, an oddity. No one could explain to us why he got it without any risk factors. But we are partners in everything so we assumed this would be another obstacle to get through on our intended path towards being that old man and woman holding gnarled hands on a front porch somewhere laughing softly and letting warm breezes ruffle our grey hair. We were wrong.

Having to move a man more than twice my weight and a full foot taller than me off a couch onto which he had sunk to recover from kidney removal surgery was a low point, one we would look back on when the cancer and treatment invaded his urethra and Prostate. Having to hold up and wash him when he was too weak and hurting to do anything but lean against the shower tile was a low point. We were about to discover there were more in our future.

Jeff has been through every mans nightmare. Having urethral cancer with no explanation. I could only wait and watch HGTV in a waiting room as doctors scraped and biopsied and probed as often as once a month. My husband helped research and devise experimental treatments to insert immunotherapy into what is effectively a tube and keep it in, much like trying to hold poison in a straw. He suffered a staph infection in his prostate. He cried and pleaded with the doctor for help with his agony, leaving voice mail messages while I could only rub his back and murmur positive nothings in his ear. Staying awake all night to watch him sleep feverishly, monitoring how soaked through his shirt would become with fevers, moaning in pain. All I could do was be vigilant and pray.

Being his caregiver wasn’t something I did by choice; being a patient wasn’t his. But being near him, being a part of his life and in his orbit was and still is my choice. He is struggling to redefine his criteria of “being a man”. So my job as a caregiver isn’t all about timing medications, weighing options doctors who went to school to study are having us choose, using what I know of physics to lever him off the couch. My job is to respect and love him like I always have. Adjust with him to the new normal and find the tucked away corners where peace and love wait for us. Assure him being the brave, supportive, loving husband, friend, and father is the very essence of what a man is.

This has leveled us over the past two years. It has taken the solid foundation we have learned trust and proven us fools. And yet we do trust, we do hope. I don’t just love this man. He fits each part of me and I him. Every time I did something he’d thank me for I’d be surprised; he would do the exact same thing for me. I can count on him to my very core. Just because I had to prove it first is simply evidence of vows we both said and believed deeply. For better or worse. This has been worse.

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