#1- What I learned about love from cancer

People generally don't associate cancer with positive experiences, but for me, it taught me the meaning of unconditional love. I know a lot of people say they love their partner unconditionally, and I believe that they believe it, but I also don't think they have been tested in a way that necessarily makes them figure it out for sure.

I am loved unconditionally. I now know what unconditional love is.

As you may or may not know, D was in Europe for a moot court competition when I found out there was a lump in my neck. I had to let him know via email that my doctor had found something, and that it needed to get checked out. It was such a lonely few days, we were hours apart, we only had email to communicate, but even from thousands of miles, and another computer away, he managed to make me feel calmer. He changed his flight to come home earlier to be with me. He went to that very first catscan up in Austin, and he held me as I cried when the doctor called and said I needed a biopsy.

The very first night D met my family was the night before my biopsy. It was an interesting dinner, we all tried to laugh and joke and pretend like nothing else was going on, but it was tough. After dinner, we bid my family goodbye, and D took me back to his place to settle in for the night and prepare for an early morning at the hospital. He rented me a movie, a funny, life affirming movie, and rubbed my back as we watched, wiped my tears as I cried from fear of the unknown, and helped me to actually get some sleep that night. In the morning, he drove me to the hospital, stayed with me until I had to be prepped for surgery, and spent the next several hours with my family. After I was released from surgery, a woozy, vomiting mess, he drove me home, invited my whole family to camp out at his apartment while everyone took care of me, and slept on the world's tiniest couch that night just so that he could be near me. I had to sleep somewhat upright because of my incision, so I was forced to sleep sitting up on the couch instead of in bed.

He stood by my side with my family as I got the phone call the next day telling me that I had cancer. And he soon after publicly pronounced that we were going to fight the hell out of it, and that where ever I needed to be to fight this thing, he was going to follow me and be right there by my side. The next day, he asked me to marry him for the first time.

D missed most of the last month of law school so that he could come back and forth with me from Houston to Austin. He was there for me for all the initial tests at MD Anderson, he took the classes on how to care for my pic line (the permanent IV that I would wear for 6 + months that was stitched into my arm), he learned how to give me the heparin injections that I would need every 24 hours for the next 6 months, and he was there with me during that first chemo session, when I was terrified of what was going to happen.

D moved down to Houston and moved into my mother's house with me. It was, in theory, an unconventional living arrangement, but it worked for us. We had just graduated, he was studying for the bar, we hadn't anticipated ending up in Houston, and oh yeah, I had cancer. It is a situation that would have made most men balk, but he embraced it because it was what I needed.

D loved me through days of vomiting and nausea. He didn't think twice about taking me to the emergency room at midnight when I spiked a fever, even though the bar exam was mere days away. He helped me pick up the hair that was all over my pillow in the mornings, and on that day when I had to finally shave my head, he shaved his own right off. He loved and loved and gave and gave during a time when I had little to give, when I expected a lot and didn't reciprocate. I wasn't able to be the woman he had originally fallen in love with, but his love helped to give me hope that I would get back to her.

It's been a year and a half since I went into remission, and our love is stronger than ever. He is my best friend, and he helped to bring me back after cancer. While I healed physically, emotionally, it took me time to deal with the aftermath of cancer. Many tears were shed, many fears were revealed, many emotions were displayed. He stuck with me and accepted me for who I was and what I had been through.

Unconditional love sounds like it should be easy enough, but looking back..... it just amazes me.