Coping with Cancer

Cyndi Jones was diagnosed with a fast-growing form of breast cancer in 2005. She had a lumpectomy and underwent daily chemotherapy treatments for 15 weeks, followed by more drug interventions and then seven weeks of radiation.

It was a battle waged in her cells, in her body and in her mind, but the effects of her cancer diagnosis and treatment did not stop with her. It rippled through her household.

“It changed every dynamic in our home,” says Jones, 50, who lives in Loon Lake with her husband, Lester. “But we worked through it together.”

In recent weeks, the nation has watched Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, play out that ripple effect for all to see. Edwards has been criticized by some and championed by others for deciding to stay in the race while his wife fights the incurable spread of her cancer.

Whatever the public’s opinion, the couple’s decision stands as a clear reminder that cancer does not attack only the patient. A cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment can rock every aspect of a relationship.

There is the immediate terror of the possibility of a partner’s death. There’s the financial strain that treatment brings.

There is the household upheaval that comes when cancer forces traditional roles to change. There’s the effect on intimacy: One partner’s body may be scarred, and there may be a decreased interest in sex.

And then there are roadblocks in communication caused by fear and gender differences.

“The biggest issues are that men tend to gut it out and try and get through it themselves, and women need to talk,” says Tess Taft, an oncology marriage and family therapist with Cancer Care Northwest.

“If men are the ones that have the cancer, their wives often feel that it’s hard to get them to talk about it, and they withdraw. And if women have the cancer, it’s hard to talk to their husbands about it. … It creates a false distance between the two.”

Sandra Hilson of Spokane learned she had a rare cancer of the lymph system, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, three years ago.

“We had a rocky start,” Hilson says of her husband. “It wasn’t good. He couldn’t handle it.”

He went to Texas on a business trip and missed her first radiation treatment, she says.

“He’s scared I’m going to die,” she says. “He can’t bear the thought of living his life without me.”

But, over time, Hilson’s husband of 18 years has learned more about her disease and has become much more supportive, she says.

“He’s become a real advocate for me now,” she says. “He’s with me all the time.”

Getting couples connected with resources that can help them can be a challenge.

Providence Cancer Center in Spokane hosts quarterly “focus groups” for spouses of cancer patients, says Sherri Calhoun, breast cancer coordinator there.

“They just don’t attend support groups,” Calhoun says. “If you even mention ‘support’, they won’t show up.”

The Cancer Center offers the Balancing Life program, designed to counsel couples to work through the problems that come up during cancer treatment, she says.

“You’re coaching people to figure out their own problems,” she says. “Sometimes it’s child issues. Sometimes it’s sex issues. Sometimes it’s chores.”

But few people take advantage of the service, Calhoun says. She’s done only one coaching session in the past six months.

Melody Coombs of Spokane and her husband have been seeing Taft for counseling ever since she was diagnosed with the rare abdominal cancer, pseudomyxoma peritonei, or PMP, more than two years ago.

She underwent “the mother of all surgeries,” not once, but twice, after her cancer returned.

“They gut you like a fish,” Coombs says. “Split you open and take everything out. … It’s brutal.”

Counseling has helped the couple, who have been married 30 years, talk about their fears, she says.

“Your issues are, ‘Am I going to die?’ ” Coombs says. ” ‘Will I be able to handle the treatment? What will that do to the dynamics of my family?’ “

Coombs underwent her second surgery in Washington, D.C., where she spent a month in the hospital. Her husband spent every day with her there, doing his work from his laptop computer on a couch in her room. He slept on the couch every night.

“It completely brought us to a whole deeper level that I didn’t know we could go to,” she says.

In Spokane, Cancer Patient Care helps people suffering through the financial hardships of the disease. The strain can heap added stress on couples, says Elly Slama, social services director for the agency.

“It’s going to drain your finances, which is going to cause huge problems,” Slama says. “Stress adds more stress.

“A lot of times, cancer will devastate a family because it’s so expensive.”

Cancer treatment also can wreak havoc on a couple’s sex life. Hormonal cancers in women, in particular, can sap libido and cause skin problems that make intimacy painful, Taft says.

“For many couples, sex is the glue that holds them together well,” she says. “And when that glue feels like it’s loose, it can affect other parts of their relationship.”

And then there is the biggest issue of all: death.

For some couples, it remains the looming pink elephant in the living room, a pervasive subject that no one wants to address.

The sick partner may not want to scare the other partner by talking about mortality. And the well partner may not want the other one to think he or she has given up hope, Taft says.

“There’s so many ways that cancer can make couples be fraught with disagreement or silences,” she says. “My one piece of advice would be to say to your spouse, ‘I want to tell you something, but I’m afraid you’ll think “blank,” and I don’t want you to think that, but here’s what I want to talk about.’ It can free people to talk about things they don’t know how to talk about.”

Lester and Cyndi Jones, who have been married only six years, received Cyndi’s breast cancer diagnosis while out on their boat at Loon Lake.

“The first thing that crossed my mind is how fast you put everything in perspective,” Lester says. “Here we’re sitting on this boat that I love to fish in, I love to take care of, and all of a sudden that stuff doesn’t mean as much anymore.”

Since then, Lester Jones has been to all of his wife’s appointments and treatments – except for one, when she decided to take a friend with her.

“I had the most empty feeling the whole time she was gone,” he says. “All of a sudden, you become a caretaker. …

“You want to have the magical fix as a man. I can fix this because I can fix the kitchen sink. It’s a lot different.”

Cyndi Jones completed her treatments almost a year ago and has been cancer-free since then.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she says. “But it’s absolutely survivable. … We won. Lester and I together.”