Welcome to Story To Tell Saturday! Today we have a story from A Young Wife’s Tale . It’s a Story of a Young wife’s realization that she had to take on the role of caregiver to her husband sooner than she would have imagined. When you marry you sign up for better and for worse!

If you have a story that you want shared at Story To Tell Saturday, please send it on over. Because it’s always nice to read about what other couples go through!

David and I were high school sweethearts. Married at 21, I distinctly remember my mother saying that she didn’t care whether or not we got pre-marital counseling because nothing could prepare us for marriage.

 Our first year of marriage was wonderful. We actually fought less than we did when we were engaged.

Our second year of marriage was full of health problems. I have had TMJ Disorder for several years, and during our second year of marriage I bit two night guards in half during my sleep. I also took a bad fall that resulted in a serious knee injury. We lived in a third floor apartment.  David carried me up the stairs so many times. In addition to this, I had food poisoning several times. David was an excellent caregiver.  Little did we know that I was about to become his.

David had suffered from back pain since high school, but the doctors had always said it was a pulled muscle or sports injury. In February 2008 David went for a physical and told the doctor that he wanted an x-ray taken of his back. He also mentioned a family history of crippling arthritis.

Thankfully, the doctor listened. The x-ray showed a slight curve in David’s spine that hadn’t been there in high school.  David’s blood work that showed extremely high levels of inflammation, so he sent David to a rheumatologist who diagnosed David with Psoriatic Arthritis.

At first, we were very hopeful. We’d caught the arthritis early. The rheumatologist said that David would go into remission and there wouldn’t be any serious damage to his joints. A year later, David was worse, and the weekend of my birthday, David became bedridden for the first time. It was unbelievable. You just can’t imagine what it’s like to have to bathe your husband until you have to do it.

Now we have been married for three years, and David is on  new medication that is helping, but he still isn’t in remission. I’m currently a homemaker. I spend a large portion of my time dealing with doctors, pharmacies and health insurance.

It turns out my mother was right. Our pre-marital counseling didn’t cover chronic illness or caregiving. Who would have imagined we’d be so sick at such a young age?

Marriage is a big commitment, and it takes a lot of work. However, it is an incredible blessing. I am so happy that David and I are married. We’ll see where we end up in our fourth year of marriage!