In Times of Sickness « Modern Love: Sex & Relationships

What does not destroy you binds you for life.

by Pamela Weintraub, senior editor at Discover Magazine, author of Cure Unknown: Inside The Lyme Epidemic, and author of the Psychology Today’s Emerging Diseases blog.

When my family moved from New York City to the Westchester suburbs in 1993, what started as a dream of paradise ended in nightmare: The beautiful deer traipsing across our property in Chappaqua carried thousands of ticks, and the ticks carried Lyme disease. Five years later we were all sick in the heart of an epidemic, and there was no diagnosis in sight. Especially sick was our eldest son – once a straight A student and traveling basketball player.

We went from doctor to doctor looking for answers, commenced treatment for our son’s late stage Lyme, spent our life savings to pay medical bills, and even lost our house. It’s no surprise that my relationship with my husband was mightily strained. With other people my husband and I might discuss a movie or politics or some light-hearted foible on the job – but for each other we had only troubles. There were bills, doctors, disturbing calls from the school, a pain-stricken child who might never recover.

Could any relationship survive these travails?

Fast forward to 2009: Our family of four has left the suburb to a better place, the brownstone expanse of Brooklyn. In Brooklyn we have espresso bars on the corner and movie houses down the street, and even the local park is concrete. In Brooklyn, the sidewalks are endless and the ticks, very few. So many years later our son has recovered – in fact, graduated from Brown University – and our family has stayed intact.

The reason? Despite all the stress, my husband and I were the only people who cared enough to dig out of this desperate situation, to stay and fight. We plundered our resources and fought until our sick child recovered. We might have wanted to flee each other, but when water is flooding your ship, you don’t toss the only set of hands helping you pump it out.

Years after the fact I can say without a doubt: What does not destroy you makes you stronger. It’s true that the illness of a child can push you apart – but it can also bring you together. After all, who else but the other parent of your child is going to walk with you to the ends of the Earth, relinquish everything and never stop trying until life has been set right.

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Read more by Pamela Weintraub on Psychology Today’s Emerging Diseases blog.