Vulva Cancer: I'm so proud of my wife By Steve Cook

In January 2018 my wife went in for her smear and half an hour later shot past me in the waiting room and out the door. By the time I got out there she was on the ground against the wall sobbing like I've never heard before. When I finally got her up she kept saying something about cancer and I didn't get what she meant. We got a taxi home and she went into silent mode, just staring ahead and lost in her own world. After being in the house about an hour she told me what had happened. How the nurse who was doing her smear didn't like the look of a spot she'd been scratching for weeks. How a doctor had come in to give a second opinion and they thought it was cancer. I felt sick, dizzy, scared and angry all at once. We just sat there on the couch and I didn't have a clue what to say to her. My vibrant, bubbly wife who had already been through so much shit now had this to deal with and it just wasn't fair. I also wanted to go back and smack the doctor who had dismissed her without examining her and also the pharmacist who told her it was herpes and accused me of playing away! Me and Deb have had some real tough times and were working to try and rebuild our relationship and this bombshell caught us both on the hop. I honestly didn't know how to react. Deb hates being fussed over and is a horrible patient so I knew we were in for a rocky ride. From then until now I've been in enough waiting rooms and consulting rooms to last me a lifetime. Add a hip replacement, a house move and weeks of travelling back and forwards to hospital every day on crutches and you have the most stressful few months I've ever experienced. I've been to hell and back since February but nothing compared to her. I never realised just how strong my wife actually is. She has taken on everything that's been thrown at her and dealt with it better than I ever could. I was feeling particularly miserable one night and she told me in no uncertain terms that when they took my hip out they put a new one in, but what she'd had removed was gone forever. The physical side of our relationship is on hold and we sleep in different rooms. She feels ugly and disfigured and has very little feeling left. To me she's still the most beautiful woman in the world and she always will be. The cancer has changed her, and it's changed me. I'm angry that she had one that nobody has heard of. I'm upset when I see her crying when one of the women in her support group has bad news. I bite my tongue when she lashes out and remind myself it's nothing personal. I love my wife and I'm proud of my wife and whatever else life decides to dump on her I'll be there.
Steve
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