What Goes Around

I read last week's Newsweek, spotlighting women's health issues, with great interest. In particular, I was fascinated by an article about a cervical cancer vaccine that is currently in clinical trials. It never fails to amaze me that some people would object so strenuously -- or even object at all -- to something so simple as a shot that would prevent something so miserable as a cancer. But it's hard to scare girls into abstinence if you take away the threat of deadly consequences.

The reason the article caught my eye is because The Other Woman has cervical cancer. She was diagnosed shortly after she and my husband began their affair. When things started going sour between them, she used guilt -- it was his fault, he was the one who gave her the cancer-causing HPV -- to convince him to stay. It worked for a while; it took him several months after her announcement to break it off. When he did, she made a last-ditch attempt to save it by telling him that her doctors had given her two months to live and would he please, for old times sake (he owed her, after all), come stay with her while she was dying? He didn't go -- I can only assume that he took my advice and checked out her story with the hospice she claimed to have checked herself out of -- but he felt bad about it for a long time. I think he still thinks, on some level, that he was responsible. He wasn't.

Every girl who paid attention in sex ed knows that, yes, you can get cervical cancer from sex. That's why we go through the joy of an annual pap smear: to catch abnormal cells early before they develop into something worse. It's not foolproof -- which is why the prospect of a vaccine is so exciting -- but it's pretty effective. In any case, it takes YEARS for an HPV to develop into cancer. According to Stanford University, the median time for cervical cancer to develop is 7 - 14 years. And Planned Parenthood points out that because HPV is so prevalent and because of the long incubation period, it's basically impossible to determine the source of infection.

Hmmmm.... my husband or some one night stand from back in college? Whatever works....


The Wife Who Knows



p.s. I promise I would never wish cancer on my worst enemy, because the treatment is pretty hideous. In the Other Woman's case, however, it was effective. Fifteen months into her two-month death sentence, she is alive and well and, from all accounts, cancer free. So use her story as a cautionary tale and go get a pap smear! For women without health insurance, many Planned Parenthood clinics offer low-cost exams. Take care of yourself, because no one else will do it for you.


TWWK

Champagne

My husband surprised me with dinner last night at a nice restaurant in the Big City. Feeling the urge to splurge, I ordered champagne with dessert. When casting about for something to toast, I realized that the last time I had bubbles was on my last night in the Small Town, when I shared the last bottle of our wedding champagne with the crowd of regulars at our favorite bar. I poured little glasses for the dozen or so people who had become our friends, and singled out all their fondest wishes, lofty aspirations, and crazy pipe dreams in my toast. I even got a little misty.

We bought a couple cases of cheap but good champagne for our wedding. We drank most of it on the big day, between the little reception after the ceremony and the big party after the reception. We packed a couple bottles for our honeymoon. We poured a bottle at the brunch we threw for the middle kid's high school graduation. We gave a bottle to the eldest kid to take on his honeymoon (apparently, it worked -- they got pregnant by accident and now I'm a grandmother!). We drank a couple bottles at my husband's birthday party last fall. We might have even had a bottle on our anniversary to wash down the stale cake that my best friend thought to wrap up and stow away for us.

Perhaps it would have been better if I'd saved that last bottle to celebrate our first night in our new house, but it seemed more fitting that I finish it off on my way out of the Small Town. I mean, I wouldn't have lived there in the first place, if not for the wedding that caused me to buy the champagne.... Circular logic, I know, but it made sense at the time. So to bring it full circle last night -- at least in my mind -- we drank a little toast to our memories of the Small Town.


The Wife Who Knows

It's Always Something

My husband's ExWife has been vexing me lately. For most of the time we've been together, she's been a fairly benign presence in our lives. Unlike the Other Woman, she's never done anything to overtly sabotage me or my relationship with my husband. But she is a drama queen who needs to be the center of attention. And after 20+ years with my husband, she knows all the right buttons to provoke a response from him.

My biggest beef with ExWife is that she can't hold a job. In the three years I've been on the scene, she's gone through at least eight minimum wage positions, including -- according to a friend who was there -- a disastrous two-day stint as a barista. Her parting shot when it was suggested that she might be better suited for something else? "I shouldn't have to work."

I've always been a worker, so I don't get her attitude. Especially since her latest go-round with my husband has been about the kids' insurance. My company provides amazing benefits, and I'm able to get comprehensive family medical and dental coverage for a couple hundred dollars a month. I even splurged for the most expensive, nationwide PPO so the kids wouldn't have to change doctors. I wonder if I told her how much I'm out of pocket every month for that $12 co-pay, whether she'd still insist that we owe her $6 for every doctor visit?

We were down in the Small Town on Friday night, out with friends, when I learned that ExWife actively resents me. I don't know why this bothers or surprises me. I mean, she was the one who sowed the seeds of her own demise by cheating on the indulgent husband who enabled her life of leisure. And even though I didn't come along until months after the divorce, she still blames me for her current predicament. It's like she believes that if I hadn't married her ex-husband, he'd still be there to bail her out.

My husband feels a twinge of responsibility toward ExWife; after all, she is the mother of his children. He's gotten pretty good, however, at curbing his instinctive need to save her every time she has a crisis. So as long as he never crosses that line, I'm content to let him handle her however he feels best. Which means that as much as I'd like to tell her off, I doubt I ever will.


The Wife Who Knows

April Fool

I am an April Fool. Not a silly, prankster April Fool, but an "it's FINALLY spring!" April Fool.

But for the time change and losing an hour of early morning light, I love this time of year. Trees that are merely ordinary the rest of the year, become beauty queens under a tiara of blooms. Bracing winds that kept us indoors, beckon us out to play in more forgiving and much gentler air. The monochromatic earth takes on a mosaic of colors as bulbs that lie dormant for a season erupt in triumph. Even Opening Day has a sense of optimism and possibility that the first football games in August can never seem to match....

For the past two years, I haven't paid much attention to the changing seasons. My own drama was pretty all consuming, as I made the transition from Big City Single Girl to Small Town Wife and (almost) back again. We're settled here, and it's a nice feeling. The waves don't wash over me the way they once did, though there are still a few demons needing exorcism. I'll save those for another day, as I enjoy the last few moments of calm before my husband and his visiting kids realize that daylight savings time has robbed them of a precious weekend hour.

The Wife Who Knows