We'd Rather Fight Than Switch

It's funny, I hadn't thought of the old Tareyton Cigarette "I'd Rather Fight Than Switch" slogan in years. But the other day, as I watched the nurse access my husband's port to start his chemotherapy, it popped into my head. With just a slight tweak - I changed the "I'd" to "we'd" - it was suddenly the perfect description of the way in which we're struggling to hold on to our identity as a couple since he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September.

Now it goes without saying that there's a whole lot to hate about cancer. For starters, there's the fact that it's, well, cancer, and it's having its way with someone you love. But there are dozens of other little, stupid, and not so stupid reason's cancer's completely reprehensible. Like the fact that it's not satisfied with trying to take a life. Oh no. It has to try to take your way of life, too.

Consider for a second a simple argument between husband and wife. You can hardly have one.  You know it's foolish to fight. One of you has CANCER, for God's sake. Why spend what little time you may have left locked in a battle over whether bowling or paint ball is the better birthday party option for your ten year-old. Or whether white or colored Christmas lights should hang on the porch this holiday. Or what you'd do if you hit the lottery.

That's one of our absolute favorite feuds. We pretend we just won fifty million dollars, then take turns describing how we'd spend it. Why his stadium-size custom train layout trumps my three thousand square foot shoe closet, I don't know. But I do know we've agreed on at least one thing. We'd definitely build a brand new house.

The fact that I want it on a beach and he wants it on a lake is why things usually get a little loud.

I know. We shouldn't fuss. But to us it's fun. We enjoy the verbal jousting. The running word circles around each other. The poking. The prodding. The "kiss me and I'll forgive you" expression my husband uses to cap each of our "energetic conversations" that makes me want to put a pillow over his face while he's sleeping.

Or while he's awake. Unfortunately these days I could totally take my ex-Marine.

Heated, passionate exchanges are just how we do things. Or at least it was until cancer came along and cramped our style. Now, just as we're making our approach to the rip roaring debate runway -- about, not to beat a dead decoration, the Christmas lights which I think should impart a lovely Tavern on the Green-like sophistication rather than a Ray's Pizzeria type ambience, sweetheart -- we both stop. Simultaneously. And apologize. And give in to the other's request.

Yick. Blech. Boring.

I won't do it, you know. We won't do it. We're going to let it rip and get rowdy over whether crunchy or smooth takes the gold in the peanut butter games, whether mashed potatoes beat French fries on the comfort food food chain, whether Dave Matthews should be killed or simply have his vocal chords cut out, or whether Marshall Faulk or Tiki Barber was the better running back. We're going to debate train layouts and lake houses, shoe closets and shore property and we are going to enjoy every single strident second of it. 

We're not going to capitulate to cancer's crap. You hear me, CANCER? You can't have my husband's life, or one iota of the way we live our life. And you're certainly not invited for Christmas. I don't care how much you like white lights.

Susan McCorkindale writes about life on the funny, and not so funny, farm on her daily blog, or just buy the book, Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl.
An original DC Metro Moms post.