I've always wanted to run away from any connection to my mother. Not just because of her craziness but because she died unexpectedly. With no prior history of any heart or health issues she had a massive heart attack in her sleep. Coronary edema is what the autopsy said and while I don't totally understand what it is I know I never want to have that happen to me. So I run. I run away from her, my childhood and the relationship problems I'm having now. Running helps me feel in control of my health. That said it is ironic that as healthy as I am, that I would be diagnosed with breast cancer and then heart problems. Still I run; maybe not as fast as I would like or as far but it's given me a sense of control and escape at the same time. It was surprising then to hear the therapist suggest today that my husband was maybe trying to run away from me.

I know that a cancer diagnosis is a big stressor for any relationship but could a fear of my mortality drive him away? When I was first diagnosed he assured me that he would help me get through the upcoming surgery and he joined me to the many doctor appointments, sitting in depressing waiting rooms and he helped with the tough decisions one makes when contemplating and choosing chemo. But once I started chemo things changed. He had offered to get live in help while I was going through treatment but I didn't like the idea of having a stranger living in the house all the time. I think because of that he decided that I could take care of things myself. I also didn't want him to think I was afraid of cancer so I saved my worrying and tears for the shower at the end of the day. Some nights I would silently cry myself to sleep while he slept besides me. Would I have been better off saying I was scared, tired and sick? I was jealous of women whose husbands took care of every need for their wives while they were going through chemo. It was tough to make everything seem like normal so when I had a day where I was exhausted I got no help and no sympathy. I remember distinctly one night. The kids were in a club and had to be picked up at 8:30. I was like the walking dead but my husband was tired from work so he wouldn't pick them up. But did I say anything or complain? No, I got in the car and feigned off sleep long enough to pick the kids up and get them home. What was wrong with me for not standing up for myself and what was wrong with him for not stepping up for me?

Then when it took longer to recover than it was supposed to he made me feel like I was weak, a hypochondriac. Doctors love to tell you that after two months your health is going to be back to normal but there is no "normal" after cancer, just a new world and a new normal. My new normal didn't fit in with doctor's stats. When the crushing fatigue lasted two months and then became six then eight months I was diagnosed with a heart problem. Sort of a perfect storm of genetic changes and chemo. If I wasn't trying to run so much I might not have known for a long time. I was forced to undergo numerous invasive tests because the doctors didn't want to believe my heart issue was from chemo. I felt bad for my husband always having to leave work to get the kids and then stay and wait for me and I never asked him how he felt. But, he never asked me how I felt. I felt like I was becoming a burden to him.

It has been a long road back to having a feeling of being healthy and in that time I have had more procedures and have lost two friends with very similar diagnoses as mine. I remember telling my husband about the first friend recurring and then later dying and I didn't get much of a reaction and certainly no attempt to reassure me that everything would be okay. Then the second friend recurred and died a year later. Again, no comment from him. I don't even think he acknowledged I was talking.

So could it be that he was blocking out everything I was saying because he was afraid of his own mortality? He's lost a good bit of weight over the last six months and has been running and hitting the gym almost every day. In fact he won't even let me run with him anymore because I'm too slow for him. Do I remind him of his own mortality? Would he rather be with someone who hasn't had any health problems? Would it be too painful for him to lose me? Believe me when I say, "I'm not going anywhere."

As I begin to run slower away from my mother's failings, letting her past hurt catch up to me, he is starting to run faster from mine.