Blindsided

Life was great—until my wife's desperate call for help. For five years I watched her health deteriorate, but I refused to give up hope

Phil Callaway

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Iwas writing a humor column on money and marriage when the phone rang. Letting it ring, I finished the sentence: "Someone stole my VISA card, but I haven't reported it yet. The thief is spending less than my wife." Then I picked up the receiver. There was silence at first, then my wife's voice, speaking the words I've never forgotten: "H-h-help me, please help me. I don't know what's happening … "

Normally it's a five-minute jog from my office to our house, but I'm sure I was there in two. Bursting through the front door, I found the kids on the kitchen floor pouring Corn Flakes into a stainless steel bowl. "Daddy, is Mamma gonna die?" asked the eldest, five-year-old Stephen.

On the living room couch lay Ramona, my wife of nine years. An ugly gash ran up her left leg, and blood had stained the carpet. Staring at me with vacant eyes, she asked, "What day is it? It's Monday, right?"

It was Friday, April 10, 1992. The first day of a journey down a road we would never have chosen.

Until that day, life had been everything we had hoped for. We'd had three kids in three years and we couldn't have been happier. I often joked with Ramona: "Sure we have three kids, but we're far more satisfied than the guy who has three million dollars."

"How so?" she asked.

"Well, the guy with three million wants more!"

We had a close family, an improving marriage, even a car that started. And my first book had just been accepted by a publisher.

Early in January 1992, however, things began to change. Waking up in the middle of the night, I'd find Ramona pacing the floor. "What's wrong?" I'd ask.

"I'm fine," she'd reply. "I just can't sleep."

Finally one night she broke down and told me, "I'm hardly sleeping. I'm thinking about this disease that's in my family."

The disease was Huntington's, a rare neurological disorder. On the scale of human misery, the disease ranks high, bringing mental and physical deterioration, then nursing homes and life support systems. "My dad had it before he drowned and I have a 50/50 chance of getting it," she had told me when we were dating. "I thought you should know, before we get … any further along." My response was the last thing she expected: "I'd like to marry you someday, Ramona. I love you." After that I never gave the disease much thought. We were young—invincible.

But by the time our kids were born, three of Ramona's six siblings had been diagnosed with Huntington's, and she thought she was next. The symptoms were there: lack of sleep, irritability, occasional clumsiness, even a craving for sweets.

'What Happened to Mommy?'

In the morning before the fateful phone call, my wife awoke at 8 o'clock feeling dizzy. The last thing she remembers is standing up to pull on her housecoat. As she fell, her leg struck the corner of our wooden bedframe.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1998, Fall

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