19. THE CASE FOR SEPARATE BEDROOMS, THE CANCER EDITION

I snore.

I know this, because my wife has told me so as she’s roughly shoved me onto my side in bed after a few too many wheat beers have clogged my sinus cavities fuller than the overhead bins on a discount airline.

But for all the discomfort, and lack of sleep I’ve caused her over the years, the tables are now turned.

Not in a snore-ee kind of way, but in a battle to the death over the temperature of our bedroom.

This is all thanks to the chemically induced menopause the post-cancer drugs have created. It started a few months ago, where she would suddenly break out in a kind of flop sweat usually reserved for poorly rehearsed wedding toasts.

“Feel my neck,” she would tell me, which was slick with perspiration as her clothing would immediately fly off. (I felt awful for her… although on the scale of feeling awful, this one was several stages below the “Jesus you have cancer” stage, but let’s not get into our sad Top Ten Year End Lists right now.)

But as there was no telling when these events would hit, our how the meds might have brought them on, bed-time as especially tricky.

Growing up in Canada, I don’t mind a chilly bedroom. There’s something comforting about a little nip in the air. But we’re talking as low as the air conditioner could go to make my wife feel even remotely comfortable. And even then she would often lay on top of the covers, perspiring as the AC roared and the electric bill grew.

Which also made, cuddling - yes, I’m a spooner, shut up - another impossibility. I felt like a trapper moving across a frozen lake, taking whatever rough soundings I could before moving closer, always aware that the footing below me was risky at best.

And so I’d retreat to my side of the bed, my wife’s large Cancer Pillow - please see previous posts - serving at the Great Wall that kept the White Walkers in place while I ken praying that even though Winter had arrived, maybe Spring was inevitable.

I don’t know how long this will last, and just when it seems on the ebb, here comes the flow again. So I’ll take solace that it’s a good run through for her eventual menopause, and try to remember that wasn’t kill you makes you stronger… colder, but stronger.