My spouse and I met under unfavorable circumstances when I was undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was a hematologist on my medical care team, namely the registrar.
In contrast to my very abrupt consultant, he was so kind, compassionate, and patient with me that I soon developed a huge crush on him. Although we both understood that ethics was a problem, there was something there on his end as well.
We became friends, and he talked to me and accompanied me in my hospital room a lot during his free time, but we never went close beyond a friendly pat or two. After my treatment was finished (eight months later) and my primary care was given to my consultant alone, we agreed to keep in contact. However, I was nervous and assumed he didn’t feel the same way I did. After our initial texts and phone conversations, we simply stopped communicating. That was it; he relocated to another province for additional training.
Six years later, by coincidence, we ran into each other again at a medical ball as platonic plus ones. We canceled our dates and caught up the entire evening, the following night, the night after that, and so on. He assured me that, as long as I gave him another chance, he would never truly have forgotten about me. Naturally, I did, and now it’s been five years of marriage!
He was my brother-in-law’s supervisor and, ironically, he is eleven years older than I am.
