February Pain-Blog Carnival is Up at How to Cope With Pain

This is a fairly new blog carnival that focuses on pieces about pain, illness, and strategies for coping. Have a look at this month's posts (including one of mine).

Grand Rounds is Up at ScienceRoll

Have a look at this week's Grand Rounds offerings. Bertalan Mesko, writer of the blog ScienceRoll, did a great job of presenting posts on topics like medicine and media, medical research, and health worker stories. I am honored that my post on illness and divorce was included.

Are Certain Illnesses More Likely to Lead to Divorce?

Couples who are dealing with the illness of one partner know well the emotional, physical, financial, social, sexual, and spiritual toll that can take. Some couples find that the struggle to adapt raises them to higher levels of awareness and intimacy. Some couples find that the stresses inherent in this situation fray the tethers that hold them together to the breaking point, and beyond.

I had thought that how a couple weathers illness depends more on the people involved than on the nature of the illness. However, a recent study (reported by Reuters) by some Norwegian researchers presented at the European Cancer Conference in Barcelona found that there are two types of cancer that increase the risk of divorce -- testicular cancer or cervical cancer.

"The research compared divorce rates of 215,000 cancer survivors with those among couples free of cancer over a 17-year period. Women with cervical cancer had nearly a 70 percent greater risk of divorce at the age of 20, a level that fell to 19 percent at 60. For testicular cancer, the divorce risk was 34 percent at 20 and 16 percent at 60, it said.

The reason could be because both diseases affect intimacy and result in decreased sexual activity, said Astri Syse of the Norwegian Cancer Registry, who led the study. Age was another possible factor, because both cancers tended to hit people when they were younger and had not yet forged strong bonds, Syse said."

This made me want to ask the question of readers and fellow bloggers -- are there aspects of the specific type of illness you and your partner are living with (or lived with) that are particularly difficult to deal with? I'd be very interested in your thoughts about this.

What do Presidents' Day Weekend and Science Fiction Films Have in Common?

When Richard and I first started dating, he forewarned me that he would never be available on Presidents' Day weekend. That is his one inviolate, sacred holiday. Not because he honors those particular presidents, but because that is when the annual twenty-four hour science fiction film festival takes place - from Sunday noon to Monday noon. Yes 24 hours in a dark theater watching sci-fi films from silent 1920's movies like the Russian film Aelita: Queen of Mars, to 1950's Red Menace sub-plot movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to 1960's trippy movies like 2001; A Space Odyssey, to 1970's favorites like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars; to new releases like Cloverfield.

For several years I wheedled and enticed and whined to try to shift Richard towards abandoning this silly practice and to spending a three day weekend with me in some quaint Vermont inn. He was immovable. I finally decided that the only way I could understand his devotion was to experience it for myself. That way I would be able to mock it more knowledgeably.

I got hooked. For the next fifteen years, I sat by his side amidst a crowd of antennae wearing, ray gun zapping humanoids sitting in the dark for 24 hours as the films rolled on and on. And while I don't love sci-fi films, I do enjoy the view they offer into an era's perspective on the future, on values, relationships, politics, and the enemy. And I do love the ritual of it all.

I stopped going to the festival ten years ago when I first got whacked with a chronic pain condition. This was one of many losses that stood as a marker for how much pain was taking from my life.

This year, on President's Day weekend, I went to the sci-fi film marathon and stayed for the entire twenty-four hours. In fact, I am writing this posting in the immediate dazed, achy, sleep deprived afterglow. I did have some ripples of pain during the marathon, but more importantly, I was back in the saddle (or the very uncomfortable theater seat), next to my sweetie, holding his hand, munching on carrot sticks, and happily traveling to a "galaxy far, far away."