Happy Anniversary!

Years before I had ever even fantasized about sharing a bowl of ice cream, a home or a last name with him, Gary Stokes was News Director at WAVY TV 10. And I was a producer, and a much different version of myself.

I was angry, bitter, and mean. I yelled at people. I said horrible things. I hurt people's feelings. I smashed things and broke things and threw things. And I was in a lot of pain, a lot of the time.

I was 30 the summer Gary and I met. I had been dealing with "girlie problems" for nearly half my life. By then I had had multiple - like 4 or 5 - abdominal surgeries. I had lost count. I spent more than a year on codeine. When that stopped working, my doctors prescribed oxycontin. I took a lot, and I took it often. I did the best I could to make it through the work day, and spent nights curled up in a ball with a heating pad, hot water bottle, aromatherapy treatments, and various other things to help dull the pain deep inside my belly and my back. About once a month, I would make a trip to the emergency room and spend the evening on a morphine drip - a "pitcher of margaritas" the nurses always called it. It would help me sleep through the night and would get me through until the pain had lessened enough for the oxycontin to work again.

In September of that year, at my wit's end, I found a doctor who agreed to give me a hysterectomy, even though I was only 30. The afternoon I sat in his office and scheduled what I thought would be my final surgery was the same afternoon I believe a much deeper relationship between Gary and I began.

As long as I had been sick, my mother was the first person I'd call when I left a doctor's office. That day I added a second call - to Gary. I spoke to him before I even pulled out of my parking space. I don't remember what I told him, but I drove straight to the station and sat down in his office. Alone and afraid, I poured myself and my sickness out to him. He told me to take care of me and everything else would be alright. When I left that day, I knew I wouldn't be back to work for as long as 9 weeks, and I knew that I would miss him.

I spent the next several days getting prepared for surgery and subsequent time at home - where I would be stuck in my 4th floor apartment for much of it. I got library books and snacks and movies. I picked up groceries. I made sure someone was getting my mail and would check on me. My mother flew in to help. I made a phone tree for people to call when I got out of surgery. I wanted her first call to be Gary. I wanted to make sure he knew how I had made it through.

Several days before I was scheduled to check in to Chesapeake General, I had a "routine" ultrasound. My surgeon found something - two things actually - that he wasn't expecting. A tumor attached to my left ovary, and one inside my uterus. As I left his office that day, truly frightened, I made two phone calls from the parking lot. The first to my mother, the second to Gary. That night - this was before there was blogging - I started sending out mass emails to my friends and family. I think I thought I was helping them, telling them how I was doing, but in reality, I was helping me - dumping my fears and worries and nightmares into cyberspace to purge them from my head and my heart.

In addition to the tumors, my abdomen was full of adhesions - attached to everything - essentially glueing my organs to one another. I was horrified when I woke from surgery and the doctor told me he had "saved" my right ovary. Saved it from what? I had wanted so badly to be done with this 15 year nightmare, and he had "saved" one of my ovaries. I wondered how long it would take for that one to need to come out. As disappointed as I was, I was extremely relieved to hear the tumors he removed were not cancerous.

I didn't get better after I was out the hospital that time. A week or so after I was discharged, I developed an infection and had to be rushed back. I was admitted for another week. Back on the morphine drip, I woke up the middle of some afternoon and saw Gary standing over my bed. I was confused and delighted. I have no idea what we talked about or how long he was there. But there he was.

As often as I could after my surgery I emailed - sometimes in a drug-induced haze. I would say things I would never say to someone's face for fear of embarrassing myself, or them. One morning - I'm sure she meant well - my mother replied to an email and said "don't you think this is too personal to share with Gary? I think you should remove him from this list." I did not, and I do not, think it was too personal to share with Gary. I believe as humans there are things we are supposed to share with each other to help us grow and to help us heal. And Gary got to know me more in that time than he would have if we had simply been working in the same newsroom.

After I went home again, I spent several weeks with nothing to do. I wasn't allowed back at work, but was encouraged to walk. So I walked. I would go down by the mighty Elizabeth River, around the harbor, close to WAVY and back home. One afternoon as I walked laps, I looked across a field, and alone, heading in my direction, was Gary. He was walking to get his lunch. Of all the people I could have seen in downtown Portsmouth that day, I saw him. Alone. And I was ecstatic. He hugged me in that old friend-y kind of hug way. That was the first time I remember noticing the way he smells - like dry cleaning and lotion and a hint of something sweetly indescribable. It's the same clean, calming scent he has now.

I went back to work for a couple of months. In that time the pain came back, and my hormones and my moods were eratic and insane. I was a mess. I felt hopeless and helpless. In March, my "saved" ovary finally had a tumor large enough for my doctor to want to take it out. Only this time it was an emergency. With grave concerns about cancer, he gave me just 36 hours to prepare for this surgery. I got in my car and called my mother. And then I called Gary and headed back to the station to tell him the news again.

This time was different. The afternoon I got home from the hospital I even got on the treadmill. I healed faster, felt better, and had more hope than ever before. The tumor was not cancerous and my ovary was gone - but it doesn't end there.

Then, and now, I have to see the doctor about every 3 or 4 months to tweak my hormone replacements. It's not always a pretty process. I have moodswings and I worry I'll never feel normal. I have symptoms that make me think I'm turning into my grandmothers. I'm not even 40, how can I have that??? When we moved to Birmingham, I started going to one of the best clinics in the country, and my doctor there is one of the top reproductive endocrinologists around. I call him "my chemist". I often feel like a big experiment, but I guess in a sense, I am.

About once a year something will happen and I will panic and convince myself that I am sick again. After sufficiently scaring myself about it, I'll tell Gary and he'll remind me that I worried about this before and everything turned out fine. He'll also tell me that if it does turn out to be something, we'll get through it. Then he'll encourage me to go to the clinic, and when I do, it's always something that's a quick fix. Add this, subtract that, wait another 3 months and see what happens. It's a constant process, but at least I'm no longer in pain or a screaming angry madwoman.

So why am I telling you all of this in our wedding blog? For one, this weekend was the 6th anniversary of my last ovary being removed. We always observe the day by eating eggs - real ones, not beaters. The other thing is this - I think most engaged people probably hope they'll never have to test their vows. They might pray things won't go from better to worse, or from richer to poorer. I am blessed. We are blessed. We've already been through sickness and now have health. And if anything should happen again, to either one of us, we know we'll get through it - together.