Second Fiddle

 Partnerships are important in all our lives. Many of our activities we complete as a pair. For most of us, most significant are our marriages or other life partnerships, but other partnerships can be important too, whether at work or with a hobby or vocation or simply as buddies.

 

In any long-term partnership, roles tend to emerge over time and these roles often become critical to the success and the longevity of the partnership itself. We all have roles that we gravitate towards, roles that suit our personality and skills and come most naturally to us. The roles tend to become more established over time, so that each partner can find it easier to be comfortable with the other to the benefit of each of the couple and of the pair.

 

Both of my marriages have shaped my life, and I consider both as successful partnerships even if one did not survive the test of time. In both cases, roles emerged that made everybody concerned stronger and more resilient. During my first marriage we had a dominant hobby of playing championship level bridge together. Developing roles, unconsciously, within a competitive context went to along way to refining our personalities. The same thing has happened in my second marriage, though we might argue that there is a bit more balance and maturity in our lives.

 

In a life partnership there are many areas where partnership roles can emerge and become established. Hobbies and activities can be part of this, but more important than those are usually in bringing up children and in managing finances. In both these fields, roles emerge and persist, though they are also the areas where serious disconnects within a partnership can develop. 

I have always made many mistakes, but I do feel that the roles I have gravitated towards in the major partnerships in my life have generally worked out well for all parties. I can extend that thought beyond partnerships, to include tight-knit teams of more than two people. Those teams could refer to an extended family, a work team or even a choir, but in all cases I found it relatively simple to establish roles for general benefit that utilised my strengths.

 

But now, with cancer and its likely outcome, I have been forced to embrace new roles in responding to my new situation. In simple terms, in many aspects of life, but most notably with my wife, I am learning how to play second fiddle. There are areas where I would habitually take the lead but where I am no longer reliably competent. There are other areas where I retain the capacity to take my traditional roles, but where that division no longer matches the needs of the partnership.

 

I can attest that learning to play new roles in an established partnership is difficult, when the situation involves responding to dramatic or sudden change. If the context is relatively slow-moving, as it usually is, we can muck along and use our experience together as a useful set of guardrails to help us. But sudden changes to context will challenge even effective partnerships, even with abundant goodwill on all sides.

 

We each spend an unhealthy amount of time making assumptions about our partner. What do they want? What do they need? Why are they taking on their familiar role in a particular situation when it is obvious that something new is required? Why are they forcing me into a new solution when the old one has worked so well for so long?

 

These are all symptoms of the partners trying to adapt to a change of context that is unfamiliar. My wife and I have come at the issue with love and goodwill and relevant experience, but we have struggled mightily. We had somewhat similar experiences when navigating other changes, notably as empty-nesters, but the current challenges seem to be tougher. We should not be too tough on ourselves – a terminal diagnosis, a major change of work situation and a choice to move between continents are all large changes, sure to challenge established partnership routines. On balance, we have probably handled the situation as well as any partnership could, but the mistakes have been frequent and will no doubt continue. As and when my health deteriorates and some pain and lots of frustration re-enter the equation, the challenges will probably only intensify.

 

Just because I am the one with cancer does not make it tougher for me, indeed I suspect the opposite is true. I am having to learn to play second fiddle in many aspects of our partnership, and that does entail frustration when my capacity is compromised and where I can’t be as helpful or as independent as I would wish. But I recognise that I have no choice in most matters, and adapting to the new roles feels quite natural in our situation. For my wife, she has been forced to step up, and has generally responded magnificently. Perhaps I am also now enjoying one more benefit of my early retirement all those years ago – a rather sedentary life does seem to suit me, and the soporific aspects of my second fiddle part do seem to suit me well.

 

So, compared with other couples in our situation, perhaps we are quite lucky. We have been given plenty of time to establish our new roles and to adapt to them. No doubt much more adaptation will become necessary in the future but, as usual, we feel quite well prepared. Except that, every time we have felt prepared so far, reality has come to bite us. It will do so again. We will do our best, and I am optimistic that our curve is quite a positive one, with our new roles becoming progressively more comfortable and our teamwork intact. 

Ordinary Love

  

I have never been a big consumer of movies. That is probably one of the many legacies from my mum, who would reach to change channel anytime BBC or ITV would deign to broadcast a film in the 1960’s or 1970’s, announcing how she hated films for being too long.

 

I have a very clear criterion for a film I am likely to appreciate, that it is about plausible people in realistic scenarios. Sadly, that rather mild stipulation rules out almost anything that comes out of Hollywood these days, so I tend to steer clear of that material.

 

The exception arrives around this time of year, when Oscar nominees are announced and then awards given out. Last year I made a point of watching nearly all the nominees for best film and I ended up enjoying most of them. We have a good TV package here in Portugal so I am looking forward to repeating the positive experience over the next couple of months.

 

This year we stumbled into an early start, thanks to a bunch of content provided by my sister after her visit at New Year. That led us to watch a 2019 movie starring Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson called Ordinary Love. The experience proved very gratifying.

 

The context of the movie could almost have been created specifically for my wife and me. The title suggests real people in a real scenario, and the movie delivered what it said on the tin. The real scenario was that one of a long-term couple contracted cancer. Inevitably in our predicament, we do find ourselves attracted to stories about cancer. Sometimes these stories make us tearful, but they also have potential to teach us lessons and help us respond to the challenges we face.

 

What I loved the most about the movie was the way it focused on the couple and how they navigated their new situation. There were no huge plot twists or surprise revelations. The cancer and the resulting treatment were not over-dramatised, but felt completely typical of the experience of millions of couples around the world at any time, including my wife and me. The couple stumbles along, cancer is discovered, treatment results, the future path is left open. The only thing slightly unusual in the plot is that the couple had already lost their only child, perhaps to another illness or something like a car crash. That extra dramatic dimension was an important element in understanding the couple, but the film-makers did not let it distract from the main theme.

 

That theme was how the couple responded to the cancer diagnosis of one of them. Smartly, the focus was more on their emotional responses and less on the medical details of their particular case. Hence the beautifully conceived title of Ordinary Love. This is a story of an ordinary situation, exploring the responses of characters facing that situation, unique and life-shaping for them but, sadly, all too common around the world.

 

The medical details and experiences were not entirely absent from the drama. After all, this is a story about cancer. I found many parallels with our own experiences in these aspects of the movie. We have had times when we have questioned the medical service we have received, especially near the start when my wife campaigned to transfer our care to a facility she trusted more (a wise move, as it turned out). There are many scenes where Neeson and Manville are sitting together in soulless waiting rooms, making wild insinuations about what was really going on, and drawing unreasonable conclusions about the possible paths of progress of Manville’s cancer. We have had many similar thoughts.

 

The most interesting part of these aspects of the movie, to me at least, was trying to understand the thoughts and reactions of the couple, including their common and separate motivations. Like all such couples and like us, they are enduring parallel journeys to what may be separate destinations. Through these journeys they try their hardest to act as a team and to support each other, but individual factors intrude from time to time. Like us (I think), they show a lot of love and each displays impressive courage. But their unity does come under pressure at times, despite their best efforts. Sometimes a well-meaning intention to help actually becomes a problem. These scenes are wonderfully conceived and executed.

 

There is not a lot of interaction with other patients, as indeed is the case with my own situation and probably most others. But a bond gradually builds with one fellow patient and with his husband. Their diagnosis is more terminal and indicates a shorter survival time. The drama is, once again, understated and intensely believable.

 

Many things about cancer can make me tearful, and it came as no surprise when the film tugged at my emotions. This occurred whenever there was a poignant private scene between the two lead actors. I would project our own situation onto theirs and notice all the pitfalls and challenges, as well as a few rewards. Each would fall into the trap of assuming the thoughts of their partner and then acting on those thoughts. They believed they were acting in the interests of the couple and carrying out what their partner wanted, but this method is far from foolproof. As well as misunderstanding, it can lead to resentments and frustrations.

 

We make this particular mistake all the time, sometimes persistently and with lasting damage. For me, observing this was the most powerful takeaway from the movie, because I know I can improve and the film gave me some extra incentive and tools to do so.

 

So I am very happy that I saw Ordinary Love and could celebrate its excellence with empathy. Perhaps its most powerful message comes from its title. We all tend to classify our own experiences and predicaments as special and unusual but, in most cases, reality is much more humdrum. Everyone’s situation is indeed unique, but most elements are shared with countless others around the world. Cancer has changed our lives and many of our perspectives. But cancer is, until now, also an ordinary occurance in life. We are special, but add up everything special and the result is all too ordinary. And the emotion that can cut through the ordinariness with most effect is love. Flawed, flailing, imperfect love is the greatest weapon that we can deploy in tough situations. Those of us surrounded by love have the best chance of coming through challenges in reasonable emotional health. I am so grateful to my wife, and to many others, for powerful loving support during cancer, and Ordinary Love served a useful purpose too. 

Another Year to Celebrate

 

We are continuing our good start here in Portugal. We have now spent three months residing here, and my health has remained consistently strong through that time, with no new symptoms or recurrence of previous symptoms to report. My medication and treatment list has been consistent since we arrived here and seems to be working for now.

 

This good health is a blessing in so many ways. Looking back on the period just before our move, I can’t imagine how we coped and how we have somehow emerged on our feet.

 

I started this piece with something of a plan to document the progress of my cancer during 2024 and how we responded. 2024 did feel like a year of decisions. But how many of these decisions really were milestones involving genuine choices?

 

Throughout my illness, and probably for most others facing similar situations, there have been apparent choices, but I now suspect that mostly these are not real choices. Partly we may instead be using our thoughts and the opportunities for consultations to help us face up to new realities. Partly the illusion of choice may be to support a feeling of agency, convincing ourselves that we are active partners.

 

Upon reflection, it feels more accurate to characterise these milestones as events or developments rather than choices. Mostly, we listen to our medical advisors and accept what is usually an obvious path, even if this advice is often presented to us as a choice.

 

There have been many developments but arguably few true choices. The initial diagnosis took time to come into focus and remains incomplete. The major operation and initial radiation and chemotherapy all involved choice but felt more like mere acceptance of a clear reality. There seemed only one logical way to respond to the infection of October 2023.

 

There was more apparent choice during the summer of 2024 once the first chemotherapy lost some of its effectiveness and MRI’s started to show more tumour growth. But again, as things developed, were we making choices, or simply allowing medicine to take its logical course?

 

Looking at the medical history in this way, I can really identify only two major points of decision. The first true choice was in November 2022, when my wife campaigned aggressively for Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York to replace our initial providers. It feels like we ended up in the best possible place with the best possible care.

 

I believe the second true choice occured much more recently, in fact during our last week in New York during our final consultation at MSK. I had endured a difficult few weeks of symptoms and side effects, and at this meeting we learned that the most recent MRI revealed substantial swelling and probably an acceleration of tumour growth. We were warned not to be surprised if episodes and symptoms cropped up more regularly from now on.

 

A little to my surprise, we were then offered a genuine choice. We had previously accepted that the windows for operations, clinical trials and experimental treatments had probably closed for us by then. Useful treatments remained available but effectiveness would reduce, perhaps quickly. Now we were informed that Dr Brennan would be willing and available to operate one more time later in the week.

 

The implications and possible outcomes of accepting the operation were made clear to us. Risks would be high, recovery slow and beneficial outcomes far from certain. Steroids, chemo, and immunotherapy still had some useful road for us to travel. But the operation had considerable upside as well.

 

We made our decision within a few minutes, and a lot of the decision was driven by non-medical factors. That coming Saturday we were booked on our one-way flights to Faro. Taking on the operation would have delayed that for months, and probably forever. We declined the intervention. Dr Mellinghoff steered us through the moment with aplomb and wonderful sensitivity. The die was cast, and here we are in the Algarve.

 

Reflecting more, the decision to come here looms larger and larger, in some ways overshadowing everything else in what was already an eventful year. And the main outcome from these reflections is how ill-prepared we both were.

 

We have had chats for many years about my wife taking retirement and us coming to live here, but until cancer came along there were valid reasons to defer any decision. Then came cancer, and a year ago we came up with the ABC concept, where A was healthy time together, B was a period of caring and C was widowhood. We still find this to be a helpful model.

 

In January of 2023 my wife declared that she was ready to stop work and come here at some point in 2024. June solidified the intent, and we went ahead with it in October.

 

But how prepared were we? On our parallel journeys to different destinations, what were the pros and cons for each of us? Did we need contingency plans? If we chose to stay in New York, what would that mean for each of us? How could we make our ultimate choice work best for each of us? Did we really understand the issues from the perspective of our life partner? Our recent beachside walks suggest to me that the answer to many of these questions was a resounding no. This was one of most consequential decisions of each of our lives, yet we stumbled into it.

 

I could quote many examples of how we were misleading ourselves and each other. One powerful one from my side was finally accepting that Portugal is not nirvana. Previously, I suspect a part of me felt that nobody in their right mind and given the option would ever choose to live anywhere but Portugal. Well, it does have its advantages, but it has challenges too, in A, B and C. I undersold my wife with my sloppy thinking. She was similarly influenced by her own blind spots.

 

We can deepen these discussions further as things develop. It does feel now that the decision was final, for my lifetime at least. We will hold each other close, celebrate each day and be thankful for the time we have. There is always ample opportunity for gratitude. Walking by the beach and working to understand each other better invites gratitude in abundance.

 

We have already enjoyed family visits here and are getting to know good, rewarding people. We hope we can look forward to more of the same. Perhaps stumbling into such a huge decision will continue to play out well for us. But I have to accept that the process involved was highly flawed. So be it.