For the first twenty-three months after Mohamed's arrival in May 2009, everything went just as we had hoped.  Mohamed fit in immediately with the way of life in Topeka, strange as that may sound.  Sometimes moving into the role of student after the freedom of a good job with a good salary was a little bumpy, but he adapted quickly.  All my friends liked him enormously.  And our in-person relationship after two years of long distance flights was a relief and a delight.  In our six years together, we've had exactly one argument, and that ended after about 15 minutes.  We spent the summer of 2010 in Paris in a very chic, but very small studio apartment and didn't get on each other's nerves despite the cramped living.  I retired at the end of May 2010, but I taught as an adjunct for an additional year, so we were even together on campus.  I had been contemplating where to live after retirement, and, for some inexplicable reason, I hit upon Florida, which had never been on my list before.  Property values in Topeka are so low that lots of potential retirement cities were immediately ruled out, but Florida suddenly seemed like the answer--inexpensive housing, no state income tax, and best of all no winter.  We visited St. Petersburg, but didn't like it, but then made two visits to the Naples area with a third trip scheduled for May 2011.  I was ready to buy; Mohamed, I think, would have been happier to stay in Topeka.

Then in April 2011, everything changed.  First, it was the sentence, "You have cancer."  Then it was it's in the bones; next came the worse news that it wasn't bone cancer, but kidney cancer that had metastasized.  Then it was the need for emergency surgery on my femur and the dire prognosis.  At no step did either of us cry.  We both focused on what needed to be done day-by-day as the telephone calls and appointments increased in number and bad news.  Without Mohamed, I'm not sure what my reaction would have been or how I would have handled this.  With him, we got through it together.

I spent nine days in the hospital at KU Med for the surgery, and Mohamed was there every minute.  He slept in the room with me and went out at least twice a day to bring me food from outside once I could eat.  The nurses loved him.  He cleaned the bedpans (no wonder they loved him), rolled me over so that they could change the sheets, and helped change and adjust dressings.  He took me for walks around the hallways as soon as I could walk and was my advocate with the guy who had designed the abduction brace, which at first cut into my flesh and caused bleeding.  The surgeon cheerfully said, "Well, it's one size fits all, which means that it fits nobody."  But Mohamed didn't stop arguing until finally someone new came and made the abduction brace as "comfortable" as it could be.  The staff wanted me to go to a rehab facility, but I just wanted to go home, and they had enough confidence in Mohamed's skills to relent.

Once home, for the next 46 days, I wore the abduction brace 24/7.  I couldn't shower.  I couldn't take it off to sleep.  For several days, I couldn't make it up the seven steps to the bathroom.  It was Mohamed who bathed me, who led me through physical therapy, and who, never with a word or sigh of complaint, did for me all the sometimes unpleasant tasks I couldn't do for myself.  He entertained visitors (how lucky we were that I hadn't forced a move to Florida where there would have been no friends or colleagues for extra support) and kept my spirits up.  At night, he would loosen the brace enough so that it was less constricting, but never more than would make it less effective.

It's been almost two years, the second year of which I wasn't supposed to be around to see, since the first telephone call with the word 'cancer.'   We still haven't cried.  Instead, we've followed the British slogan, "Keep Calm and Carry On."  Mohamed has carried on with a full load of classes every semester, in addition to being my chauffeur, my therapist, my rock.  I've carried on in large measure because of Mohamed's love and support.  Without him, I have no idea how these last two years would have played out.  I don't even want to imagine them.  When I have no appetite, it's Mohamed who searches for what might sound good to me and gently encourages me until he can see that it's time to say, "That ok.  Don't force yourself."  When I make small groaning noises as I stand up or climb the stairs or hear the rumbling in my stomach that signals yet another trip to the john, it's Mohamed who pretends he's heard nothing or makes a joke of it.  When we go out and then suddenly have to rush home, it's Mohamed who risks the speeding ticket.  When nothing but sushi sounds good to me, it's Mohamed who goes to Dillon's, no matter what the hour or what he's been doing.  When at least twice a day I announce that I have to sleep, it's Mohamed that turns the bed back.  He doesn't gripe now that trips are out of the question.  He still finds me sexy (de gustibus... and all that) when all I see are Prufrockian skinny, white arms and legs.  He gives me a shot every morning and says "I'm sorry" just before the needle goes in.  (I always say "thank you" once it slides out.) 

Life feels in many ways diminished because it is.  But in more important ways, it's not diminished at all--and all because I'm not going through this alone but with a smart and loving partner.  He makes it easy to keep calm and carry on, and together we continue to do so.