So Sad Today - Melissa Broder Page 0,48
no matter how much you love him. I had always shielded my parents from the true severity of Ron Jeremy’s illness. I remember shopping for a wedding dress with my mom and thinking I just can’t do this. I remember crying quietly in the dressing room until she asked to be let in.
This was when I finally conveyed to her the seriousness of Ron Jeremy’s condition. Both of my parents encouraged me to reconsider my decision. They had always liked Ron Jeremy, but what kind of life was I signing on for? They were scared. Did I know what I was getting myself into? I did and I didn’t.
I also had other adults in my life, one mentor in particular, who encouraged me not to make a decision based on fear. Ultimately, I chose to marry Ron Jeremy because, I reasoned, I would rather be with Ron Jeremy sick than another man healthy.
Does anyone really know who they are marrying? People change. We do not know if the person we commit to will be the same person in ten years. We do not know who he or she will become. Will you be the same person in ten years: in health, body, money, interests, mental health?
Ron Jeremy and I did not know at the time that his illness was progressive. We considered him an anomaly, lucky even, as some people with this disease are bedridden year-round. But over the years we have been married, Ron Jeremy’s relapses have become more and more frequent, to the point that he is never not sick. Those windows of health are gone. His lows are no longer so low that he cannot make it from the bed into the kitchen (or maybe he is just more used to coping). But now, even at his best, he cannot walk more than a few blocks without stopping and resting. He looks for benches and walls. He plots routes. Now instead of sick and well he floats between sick and sicker.
The saddest part of the illness for me to watch is the brain fog that gets in the way of Ron Jeremy doing the things he loves: reading great works of fiction and writing. He reads some, but not with the voraciousness he once enjoyed. He doesn’t really write.
Had I known that his illness would only continue to get worse, I am not sure if my decision would have been different. At the time we got married, I didn’t know how much the illness would impact my life. I didn’t know that we would move four thousand miles across the country to Los Angeles, where the climate is easier on a sick person. I didn’t know how many events I would attend alone, unpartnered.
I didn’t know how long a haul the illness would be, how monotonous and seemingly hopeless sometimes. I didn’t know that the illness would be another body in the marriage—always present, even when we are not together. When I am out with friends, living my life, as Ron Jeremy has always encouraged me to do, the illness speaks to me and says I should be home. But sometimes I do not want to go home, because the illness—and its resulting depression—fill all the rooms of my home. Even when Ron Jeremy isn’t depressed, the illness itself is a palpable depression.
In the months leading up to our wedding, Ron Jeremy started a course of hydrocortisone. It is the only thing that has ever really worked. And while hydrocortisone is more of a bandage, and not meant to be a long-term treatment, in the fall of 2008 and for much of 2009 he lived like a healthy person. We traveled to Spain. We traveled to Rome. I remember skipping toward him in a medieval courtyard in Barcelona like, Look! We are still children! Once again, we pretended that the illness no longer existed. Then the hydrocortisone stopped working. He has not been healthy since.
Living with a sick person puts me in touch with some of my greatest fears. One of those fears is being still with myself. Like, I am scared to be still for Ron Jeremy—to be present for him at his most paralyzed—because it forces me to be still with myself. Another one of my fears is boredom, hopelessness, the feeling that I am dead while I am alive. The thing about chronic illness is that it’s so fucking boring. The sick person gets depressed and you get depressed. If you’re lucky, you share