It’s my wedding annivesary this month.

I don’t think my husband knows that.   We’ve never celebrated it.  Our lives were so busy with work and children and enjoying the moment that it got put to the back of the drawer.

So much has changed since I first fell ill with CSM…but most of all my husband.  These are not criticisms they’re fact.

My husband expected

• a dinner on the table after work, something involving meat and veg
• the house to be tidy
• the children to be settled

If I typed a list of what I did and what he did I think I’d probably divorce him…so we won’t go there.  Actually although I was a full-time working mother I was happy to meet his expectations.  My nature is to care.

We ticked along nicely.  Sometimes we had spats and fallings out.  Sometimes I wanted to scream in his face that I was bloody exhausted from work and juggling kids and housework and cooking.  Other times I felt this immense pride that I was a super being. I’d never been good at anything – I was so mediocre I blended into walls, doors, landscapes, skyline; I barely existed till I met my husband.  His high expectations elevated me; I was an epic wife and mother.  That’s not a brag – it’s true.

Without noticing myelopathy  gradually and silently drained my power, sapping my life force until I was empty…until I crumbled.

I remember the morning my husband drove me to A&E.  it was still dark.  About 4am. We had to leave our eldest, 16, in charge of our other three.  For me to relinquish my responsibility, to beg to go to A&E, meant I was in trouble.

I had no idea that my trip to A&E for some hard drugs would reveal that I was slowly becoming paralysed.

I was in hospital for seven weeks.  Whilst I battled pain and disability my family began to disintegrate.  The tight ship that I’d nurtured began to sink.  Call after call.  Questions. Hot air. Mini breakdowns. Slaming of doors.  It was all happening. The Murphy’s in crisis.  Blame was attributed to everyone and everything.  Each Murphy had an opinion. Fingers were pointed, hurtful words were spoken and that was just day one.

I had calls from my husband. He’s never coped well with vagueness or ambiguity.  How many items should he put in the washing machine – 10? No honey.  Ten socks would be too little and ten towels too heavy.  Just half fill it with anything.

My thirteen year old son calls.  He’s been prescribed tablets for his acne.  He needs to know how to swallow a tablet!  I talk him through it, together the tablet is downed.

My sixteen year old daughter calls.  She’s slammed the front door and leaves a shouting father behind.  Mum he’s cracking up.  We’ve no clean clothes, no towels, the smoke alarms persistently bleeps whilst dad burns, its chips every night and accusations that if we’d done more to help you wouldn’t be so ill.  She says that’s something coming from a husband who can’t find his own socks and boxers without his wife.

My husband was not a new man; there were no moisturisers on his bathroom shelf – a man bag? Please! But what I love about him is he rose to the challenge.  There is nothing my husband can’t achieve.    As cups and coffee jars fell from my grasp,  his broom and pan were not far behind.  As I swayed from room to room, tripping up, slipping up, banging into everything, he pulled up mats and moved furniture.  When my hands were too feeble to stir and too painful to mix, he picked up the wooden spoon.  I remember when my body gave out and I was confined to my bed awaiting another operation. I was too weak to hold a book so he unbound the pages of a best seller and attached a few at a time to a piece of cardboard that rested on my chest – we called it a Swindle.  I think that period was the worst time in my life.  I couldn’t climb stairs so occupational therapy delivered a hospital bed which was in the front room, next to the window.  I would watch the birds and the squirrels.  It’s so silly really but I named them.  My husband made ledges in the different trees and put bird food out to encourage activity. He conquered…the washing machine,  the oven, the Hoover, the iron, even sewing. Following my third operation I had reduced movement in my neck – I could not look down, food kept falling off my fork, so he made a base raising my plate to mouth level.  It was nice enough that I could bring it to the coffee shop or to a restaurant.

Marriage is hard.  Family is even harder especially when you have adult children living in the family home.  I don’t want to give the impression that it’s all Mary Poppins in our house.  It certainly is not.  My husband is my carer.  We spend too much time together.  It’s hard for me never to be alone.  I’m quiet, introverted, happy with my own company.  It’s hard for him not working. My husband is larger than life, opinionated, social.  My disability has been harsh on both of us.  There is no shielding loved ones from this disease because it is so erratic, so insidious, so damaging.

Like a kangaroo I bounce from one physical state to another.  I’ve spent the last two days in bed with a pain in my head and neck the demobilises me. My mood dips, rises, simmers. Today  I’m upbeat but I’m losing my balance, my head is cloudy, my grip has gone.  I feel very confused.

Today my husband got up with the kids, he drove them to school.  He popped into Aldi on way back for groceries.  He’s walking the dogs now.  On his return he’ll make soup and a sarnie. After he’ll tidy and hoover.  Then he’ll think about dinner.

I know without doubt my husband has got my back.  He’s researched myelopathy so thoroughly he could operate if he had to. We’ve always been a team.

On Facebook, on the myelopathy support group I feel sad reading comments about family members being unsupportive. I can’t imagine how gutted that must make you feel.  I don’t know how I’d cope if my husband wasn’t hovering around, checking on me, making our home cosy and looking after the kids.  He’s simply a different man.  I fell in love with the old him…but it’s the new him that I continue to love.