Whoever said marriage was easy was a f*cking liar. Or. Got divorced early on once things started getting real. But I won’t go down that soapbox rabbit hole.

I’m not here to really even complain about marriage, or my husband, Kyle for that matter. Because ultimately he is wonderful. I guess I am surprised because in our first year of marriage, I wasn’t expecting this much sacrifice.

Inherently, sacrifice isn’t a bad thing. I actually think sacrifice humbles a person and allows them to grow closer to God, or whoever your Higher Power might be. However, I wasn’t prepared so I feel like the excess stress in my life is weighing on my soul so much more than I ever thought it would or could.

I just realized I haven’t blogged in two plus months so let me backtrack a bit…

Lemme summarize the last year, starting in January:

• January 2025: Kyle was working a lot at his union grocery management job as Fresh Cut lead in the Produce Department. We are very much newlyweds at this point, only had been married for like three months. I was transitioning from working graveyard shifts in the homeless shelter at my job to working on the crisis team as a a crisis and recovery outreach navigator.
• February 2025: I had my 27th birthday. I started working on the crisis team. Kyle started getting symptomatic with his Mastocytosis, which for him, was a type of auto immune response blood cancer. The beginning of all the blood work, urgent care visits, PCP visits, etc. began at the end of the month.
• March 2025: My niece and nephew were born one day apart from one another!!! So I became a first time auntie and Kyle became an uncle. (My sister and her husband had their first child together and my husband’s adopted brother had another child, but first child with his long term girlfriend. Both kids were BIG lol… but happy and healthy for both, so happy about that.) Kyle still struggled with determining if his mastocytosis was in the story again or not because his levels did not deem it had come out of remission, but he had all the symptoms and issues that go with that type of cancer diagnosis. This would be his second round of cancer were he deemed to have it again.
• April 2025: Kyle’s symptoms subsided for the most part allowing him to work a lot during the month of April and recoup some of his sick time and PTO. Near the end of April, Kyle had Sciatica on April 21, which I believe was a Sunday. They did either a ct scan of his back and abdomen or a MRI, I forget which. But as of midnight on Monday early morning, everything was perfectly healthy minus his back pain from the sciatica. He had to be taken the ER via ambulance because of the pain and I couldn’t transport him in my small car and he could hardly walk… within not even 48 hours, I was calling 911 once again for another ambulance. But this was a much different and much scarier reason. The ER staff two days prior gave my husband a urinal to use so he didn’t have to walk or move as much to urinate. I was asleep in the bed, this was 3am roughly on early Tuesday morning. My husband was on the couch because it was closer to the bathroom and the front door. He was feeling constipated due to the narcotics he was on for pain relief. But I guess while I was asleep, he peed into the urinal and called my name out several times in a weak voice. Now for reference, I woke up a little before 4am because I had to get up and use the restroom in the middle of the night and I had work at 9am. I found my husband collapsed on the ground, face down. I called to him, “Kyle…Kyle… Kyle………KYLE!!!” He woke up alarmed, and groggily, he said to look at the urinal. I lifted it up and it was the color and consistency of Coca-Cola; brown and smelled awful (I mean, coke doesn’t smell bad but his pee certainly did…but I think you get my drift). I called the ambulance because something serious had to be wrong… I knew he must be dehydrated, but not to that extent and if he collapsed I don’t know I couldn’t do much. In the moment I was frankly pissed and irritated that it got this bad because I asked the evening before if he needed more medical attention and he said no he should be fine. But clearly wasn’t he didn’t want to be a burden… which I get but this was more of a burden now because the situation was in grave danger zone, not just in the yellow caution zone. I called 911 and the EMTs and paramedics were there within minutes. Kyle looked gray, and if I didn’t know better, he was near dead like within hours. Paramedics/EMTs diagnosed Kyle with “possible sepsis”, took him out on a stretcher, and left me at the house alone while they turned on the lights for the 5-10 mile drive to the nearest emergency room. They also said he might not make it, and I was unsure if that was to the hospital without going unconscious or if he was going to die. Once they loaded Kyle in the ambulance, I called my parents in tears telling them what happened. My mom was on her way. I called his dad and step mom who usually didn’t like to be bothered at 4am, but if this was the last time he would ever see his son again, I thought it might be important for him to be there, if not, to at least know of the emergent situation. His dad was already on his way to work but his step mom called him, he called off, and hauled ass the ER. I called him mom and brother in Alaska so they could get the soonest flight to Seattle. I thought my husband was going to die and no one was going to tell me otherwise. I didn’t want him to die, of course. However, with the gravity of the situation, I felt like God called on me to prepare my heart for the worst case scenario. I eventually made it to the ER, my mom and his dad met me there. They did all sorts of tests, MRIs, etc. to show a complete bowel obsturction and needed emergency surgery or he would die. I signed consent forms as his wife, because he was unconscious and not able to make medical decisions for himself. They wheeled him off. He had two surgeries total over two days, three and a half days total in the ICU, three more days in the inpatient hospital setting. He got out on a Monday and was able to watch some of the NFL draft in the hospital, something he had been talking about for months.
• May 2025: I was home with Kyle for 2-3 days after he was released from the hospital. His mom and brother were staying with us since they had gotten in from Alaska a couple days after his first surgery to remove the bowel contents (weird thing is there was nothing that was blocking the bowels; he had an obstruction with no obstruction which caused the sepsis.) Anyway sewage was spewing in to our home on either May 1st or 2nd via the bathtub, sink, toilet, etc. which damaged our whole bathroom, office, and part of our living room due to the sewage and water damage. We were forced to abruptly move out of our home into a hotel. Since Kyle couldn’t lift anything over 2 lbs that left me to move all of the belongings out of our home and into this sh*tty hotel. We lived there for three weeks of May. The repair people ripped out the bathtub which was damaged as well as the toilet, sink counters, most of the walls in the office and bathroom down to the concrete foundation and wood beams and insulation, as well as all of the damaged carpet from two rooms, and the damaged tile from the bathroom. After three weeks in a hotel, we moved on to a local AIrBNB for another three weeks. I went back to work after taking care of Kyle in the middle of May.
• June 2025: We moved back into our home first week of June. No work had been continued on the house since they removed all the stuff plus the asbestos they found in the paint in the bathroom. Kyle and I have been confined to either the kitchen or our bedroom due to the damages not being repaired still to this very day (July 6). UGHHHH. But in a way, it felt better being home. For our bathroom needs, we use the two full bathrooms upstairs in his grandparents’ home/apartment. His grandma is very conservative about water usage because she only wants Kyle and I to shower like twice a week, but in summer especially, I need to shower daily and Kyle does too, because work. So we got a YMCA membership and did a lot of showers there even though we offered to pay the water bill at the grandparents’ house. Anyway. Because of the three or four moves I did of all of our living room belongings and whatnot, I was diagnosed in the ER with three herniated bulging discs in my neck which caused me to be at work for like 2.5 weeks in May and miss majority of the work days in June due to my FMLA leave of absence and pain levels. I swam a lot at the Y so I could increase mobility in my neck. It feels 80% better as of today and I’m now back to work but it’s still ouchy to this day. Kyle went back to work in the middle of June. He is sore for sure everyday, but is also getting stronger every day, which is good.
• July 2025: I went back to work last Monday for the first time in a while and I had a good week. Kyle has been doing well at work as well. Kyle had some follow up bloodwork done from after his medical emergency and went to a nutritionist on the 3rd and found out he has Celiac disease, which means no gluten or wheat products of any kind or else it could lead to another bowel obstruction which would then lead to a permanent colostomy bag and a lot less of his intestines which could lead to more general surgeries in the future. This celiac disease for him was dormant since his brother has it too which I knew ran in the family, but it was triggered by Kyle’s GI surgery trauma and that’s why he might have tested negative for celiac in the past. But it could also be that this random as* bowel obstruction was caused by the built up gluten in his system, which led for the body to go into sepsis and shut down. The world may never know because the doctors we have seen certainly got no clue as to why this happened. I did a $414.00 grocery shopping at Costco yesterday and removed all the gluten and wheat products in our home which was everything. Fruits, veggies, and protein only products are f*cking expensive. But if it improves his and my quality of life, then so be it, I’ll put up with it.

I feel like we have just been through all of the things lately. I wouldn’t give that up for anything because I do love Kyle unconditionally. I guess I didn’t realize how much that unconditional love would be tested in this first year of marriage.

I wouldn’t say our marriage is hard relationally, because Kyle and I adore each other, show each other kindness and respect, etc. However, the situations God has put us both in together has made me realize the preciousness of life and how much we need to look to Him for guidance. I can’t do this alone and neither can Kyle, nor do we choose to. Thank the Lord we are both firm in our faith and I relied on prayer a lot throughout his hospital stay.

I do admit, I feel distant in my relationship with God, but it’s not like I have stopped praying or worshipping or doing the d*mn things… I just don’t feel the Lord’s presence in this time of my life when I feel I need Him most. Not that He has abandoned me; I don’t believe that. I feel like other times in life you just feel connected to God or you don’t. I am unsure of why this is but I have felt it more than a handful of times in my life. I feel like I am truly pursuing the Lord and what He wants for my life and for Kyle’s life but I do know a relationship isn’t all about the Jesus feeling, well not always at least. It’s unconditional.

Marriage is hard because my needs are changing because I’m turning my life over and around to be with my husband since it’s now “we”, not “me”. I mean, it’s been “we” since we have been together but I haven’t truly sacrificed much until we got married and then all this sh*t became real and I really am sacrificing, doing all the d*mn things, etc., etc.

I thought I had something more profound to write than “marriage is hard” which is why I brought the blog out of retirement but I forgot what I was trying to say. I think most women idolize marriage and the opportunities it represents. No one idolizes how hard marriage is to give up what you want or may need for the sake of your partner. That is f*cking hard!!! Why aren’t people talking about this?!?!

I’ll leave on that note, at least I wrote some stuff down.

Think about it.

<3, Dani