August 14th, 2023
On our first full day on our cruise to the Bahamas I had enjoyed the pool long enough. My skin was beginning to bronze and the festive tracks that had been altogether awesome just hours earlier now seemed like noise that I need to escape from. Their were also so many people. So much commotion and my lower back was screaming again. I didn’t know from what but after the past few hours of lounging, water-dancing, and wandering around looking for and eating food, my back was really sore.
Tony came back from the bar with a Long-Island iced tea and he could tell from the look on my face that a change of scenery was needed. “I’m done. I need a break.” So we gathered our things and made our way back to our cabin and all the balloons from the Happy Birthday surprise from our porter were a little smaller, but the bed was made. It was nice to come back to a made bed and we both agreed how much we appreciated it. Whenever we stay in a hotel we mention it and on the days one of us doesn’t make our own bed at home, we often comment that, “the maid didn’t come today.” And perhaps if either of us our feeling a bit frisky, we might add, “that bitch.”
Anyway, I told Tony that my joints felt swollen when I we had still been at the pool prior to him going to get his cocktail. “My lower back hurts and I think it’s time for a nap." When we finally dragged our tired and hot asses back to the cabin, I immediately changed out of my neon orange bikini and go tin the shower. Tony went out to the balcony to watch the waves pass and to finish his drink. He looked so handsome and relaxed out on the balcony. This guy who never takes time out for himself…he was on vacation. He loves to watch the water and whenever we are near the ocean that is where you can find him; staring out into the abyss, getting sucked in and swept away as if he were searching for his long lost mermaid.
After eating our surprise afternoon snack were both feeling relaxed on this blissful afternoon of nothingness. We sang and laughed and cuddled in bed and we just enjoyed one another's company. He rubbed medicated cream onto my back and it really helped. I encouraged him to finally write his book, The Wussification of America, which was the idea that inspired me to give that big first kiss on our first date so long ago. We were just philosophizing and then we had a conversation about his family.
We have been talking a lot about his siblings lately. God, I love them all. I have worked very hard to establish a meaningful relationship with each of his four siblings and their spouses over the past ten years. Them thinking anything but the very best of me has really bothered me throughout the past eight months. I think they are all intelligent and fair-minded people and they know me and my heart. They know me really well, actually.
I think what I was most afraid of - and I didn’t realize it until today when we were discussing the matter, both was that if they all thought that I wasn’t being a good wife to Tony, then they were probably right. But I had been so defensive about it, so crazed, and so wound tight about everything over the past eight months to even consider the truth of why their opinion of me bothered me so much. If they thought I was being unreasonable to their brother all these months, then I had been.
“But I am doing the best that I can do. This is so hard. They don’t understand what is going on in our home. This isn’t like being sick on chemo and prostate cancer is curable. He isn’t throwing up and he doesn’t need me to cook his food for him. He is just tired and grouchy and the things that are coming out of his mouth are just irrational and crazy. It’s the hormone therapy. I am doing the best I can do. I am going to keep him accountable because that is the type of relationship that we have. I can’t stop doing that or who would I be to him? I am trying to be a woman of integrity.” All of these things I have been saying about this situation, although they were my truth while I was at home and surviving this disease with him, now they sound like callous BS and when his younger brother Luke was chewing me out for not being a better wife to him a few months ago I think all of those type of comments must have sounded like complete dribble to him. He was livid and thinking, “He is my brother and he is sick. Just love and support him,” Luke was brave enough to say it to me. It just sounded too simple and rudimentary, but he was trying to say, if you love someone just be there for them when they need you. Afterall, I know that Tony would and will be there for me when I get sick, so I should be there for him now. I think my definition of "being there" and "support" are different than that of many other people's. Marriages are so complicated and what I have learned through this process is that it's better to not share when you are in the thick of a tough time and that's why journaling for emotional wellness is a better alternative.
But through this conversation, I did have a paradigm shift today, a course correction if you will. I was talking to Tony about my last trip to the doctor a couple week ago and how she wanted to do another colonoscopy already. It has not even been a year since the last one, but I am having more stomach issues now than I have before. Since about two years ago I never got a stomach ache or heartburn or anything. I have just been healthy and without much pain throughout my life. What a gift. But, recently I have noticed more digestive issues and my doctor has been mildly concerned. Tony was too.
When we were talking about my tummy issues I considered my friend Hannah and remembered how sick she had been when we were close friends when we lived in Panama City twelve years ago. Her Crone’s disease was so painful and she got to the point that she could only eat broth and chicken. She lost so much weight and then the doctor decided she needed surgery to remove the diseased part of her intestine. Ever since then she has been cured. They just removed the broken and used up section of her intestine and now Hannah is okay. That is so specific to me. It wasn’t until I was friends with Hannah that diagnosing health had seemed so targeted and precise. Before, Hannah, "practicing medicine" had all been very obtuse and inaccurate and just not as specific. But, I have always been healthy, so that all makes sense now.
What if I have something wrong with my like Hannah had wrong with her body? Something that required me to need Tony? I really didn’t want to ever be sick and need someone in any capacity. No one every wants to be a burden on their family. But, I am the mom and the wife, like my Mom was before me. I take care of my husband and my kids when they are in the womb, when they are little and defenseless, and when they can’t speak for themselves. I am that person, so I simply can’t stay down for long. I can’t be a drain on the kids or Tony because I have to be the nurturer. But, the reality is that someday, it will be me who is sick and I will need someone to take care of me and Tony will be the one who will do it, without hesitation, and God, I will have to let him. Today it occurred to me that I hoped he would do a better job of being kind and empathetic than I had been this year. I apologized to him today for not being a better wife to him and he forgave me, instantly, my Amazing Man.
So, okay, I am evolving, and I am also pragmatic. I am a nice person, so why couldn’t I be the caregiver that he needed since his diagnosis? I told him I needed a damned vacation when he first got his learned about the C-word. We even talked about where we would go together but instead we used our precious PTO to go to Illinois to see his family at Christmas. That was nice but it wasn’t a vacation. We always go to Illinois to see his family over the holidays but it doesn’t fill my cup the same way it fills his. My cup has been empty for a long time. I am realizing the depth of that need for a vacation today, in the safety of this little room, with nothing for me to do and no one who needs me to do anything. This is why I needed the damn vacation…I just didn’t fully realize until now what would happen if we didn't get a break. I didn't have the reserve to pull from. I was already so fried that the extra stress just broke me.
The truth of the matter is that I don’t think I could be the soft, patient, and kind caregiver that he needed me to be, because I was all used up. And that is why I had to quit my job in May. I simply couldn’t extend myself to them another day. I had barely anything left to give Tony. That is why I had to send Wyatt away. I have not been on a vacation in eighteen years. Pitiful. Sure, on paper and deep in my heart, where it counts, I loved Tony, but I had forgotten what it felt like to love us and I was feeling it again after being on this ship for only about twenty-four hours.
The last time I was on a cruise was in 2005 and I got close to this level of peace then, but I had been with the boys' Dad, Joel and I had reached a breaking point then too. I was done with his BS. We were at what I thought to be the worst point in our marriage and I was planning my exit from our marriage. That is why I had worked so hard that year selling The Pampered Chef to earn that cruise, after-all. I wanted and needed that vacation; a seven night Celebrity Alaskan Cruise. I needed it then and I needed it just a bad this time around. Truthfully, the magic of that vacation helped Joel and I reconnect and we stayed together another five years because of it.
Over the past eight months, I may have been able to cope with his diagnosis better if I felt mentally grounded but when he received his diagnoses I had nothing left to give him. I had been living my life for a long time like as a tire rolling down the street after the air has seeped out, riding on the rims, the medal scraping concrete. I had been spent from all of life’s stressors, and I truly didn’t realize until today how it made me act to the most important person in my life - and to everyone else that I interfaced with - until today.
Moving forward in my life, with all the good I had in front of me, I heard my small voice telling me that I wouldn’t be an effective wife, or mother, or author, or book promoter, or consultant unless I went on this cruise. I needed this vacation and the next one to look forward to more than I needed air.
This is why we all need vacations, and frankly cruises are the perfect get away. Cruises offer all the good things; water, easy traveling, non-connectivity, five-star service, luxurious rooms, delicious food, sparkling entertainment, and exotic destinations. When you are empty, cruises fill your cup and help you to be more than a cog in the wheel at work. People are creative and lovely creatures, but they can only reach their full potential when they are not properly lubed. Vacations are the lube.
And that's how PTOAffirm started.
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Shannon Joy Mekeel’s first book was inspired by her husband’s prostate cancer diagnosis and androgen deprivation therapy. It is entitled You Have Arrived and will be released in fall 2023 and is now available for pre-sale at ShannonJoyMekeel.com.
The companion documentary, Hurry Back will debut April 2024 at the inaugural Redfish Film Fest in Historic Downtown Panama City. This 12-part series tells the story of her family’s struggles and victories over the past century.
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