Now that we are older, we know many people who have faced cancer or who have journeyed through it with a close friend or family member. Back when Husband was diagnosed, however, he was young enough that we were real outliers. While our friends advanced careers and had additional babies, we were waiting on PET scans and lab results. It was very lonely, as it felt like nobody could relate to our experience. Similarly, I struggled to connect with a world outside of hospitals and young children. I so wanted to be excited about a friend’s newest client, or the recently discovered exercise class. Instead, such preoccupations felt banal compared to the fight for Husband’s life. Many times, I found myself astonished that the world was continuing normally. In contrast, we were deep in an alternate existence, as if we had traveled through a wormhole.
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