I didn't want to be treated differently so for me not to be treated differently we had to kind of approach it head on and just get over the issue that I had, you know, no hair or whatever, or the fact that, you know, also, fertility in later years. We, we had to deal with a lot of serious issues on day one of a relationship which, you know, we didn't know where it was going to go basically.
Do you remember how you approached the issue of fertility, sort of?
Yeah, I mean obviously it wasn't sort of instantaneous but it was fairly early on and I, it, we approached a lot of issues at the same time. We just kind of talked them out and we would just kind of go through them that, the difference of you know, hair from most people. The fact that, you know, it, it was an illness that could come back and could potentially you know, I could potentially die in extreme circumstances. And so all of those issues we kind of confronted fairly early on in our relationship and just talked them through basically. And I just tried to basically explain how I felt about them and that you know I wasn't going to expect anything from anybody because I didn't think it was fair so you know I, I was just going to say, “I just want you to basically treat it as a normal relationship if you can and see how it goes. And, you know, if you can accept these sort of issues we can just see where we go from six months down the line when things return to a bit more normality.”
So we kind of approached it like it wasn't going to be a serious relationship but obviously dealing with all these serious issues it meant it was in essence, because you know, all those sort of issues immediately means you're in a sort of serious relationship. But we kind of put no, I put no restraints on my girlfriend at the time you know. I said you know, “I give you whatever back out clause you want, you can just walk away whatever time I don't expect anything from you.” And I think that was the only way I could really approach it because I didn't want to be that, that selfish that if something did worry her, or freak her out, or you know, she came to think sort of, oh God, three years down the line perhaps, or you know ten years down the line when I want children, I have to go to you know whatever sort of clinic to kind of get it all sorted out, I can't have it sort of naturally done. So I, we, we basically approached it like that and said with fertility, “If it is an issue you know, you can just basically walk away at any, any stage and I will totally understand because that's, that's all I can do really.”
And I guess at the minute, sort of four years on we still kind of face those sort of issues and luckily she's still kind of accepting of, you know, if it, if it happens it happens if it doesn't then there's always that, it's, it's a second kind of guarantee I guess that something, something could happen. It's just, it's just something that, we're kind of dealing it, on a, kind of as it comes basis I guess still [siren]. We will try sort of naturally first off, as you, as you, as you only can and then if it becomes an issue then it becomes an issue we'll raise it when we have to deal with it. We know it's there so it's always something to fall back on if we have to but, hopefully, being well, it should, well, should hopefully lead a normal lifestyle like I do now in any case. It should all hopefully proceed well but, yeah I think that's how we dealt with it. We just kind of put no limitations on either of us and just said, you know, if one of us kind of thinks, God it's, it's too much, can't, can't cope with it that either one of us could have just walked away and we would have understood I think for you know for the reasons that we've gone through. Luckily again, like me she didn't put any limitations on me and any restraints she just treated me normally like she would have done any sort, any sort of relationship basically and I, I was really thankful for that it, that I could have that sort of benefits. That I could just kind of progress, as any normal person would, you know. We would just do normal things, normal dates, normal you know everything just carried on as normally as we could and any sort of issues that were obviously apparent like, like the hair loss we just kind of took in our stride and we would talk them through first and then get over them and she'd, basically, it basically involved me kind of worrying about it, telling her that I was worried, and then she would just say, “Well don't worry about it” [laughs]. And we'd just get on with it, which was great yeah.
Pretty simple [laughs]?
So, it, it was pretty simple basically it was fantastic that I had somebody like that, that I could rely on. Especially seeing as she hadn't known me before I was ill and, you know, put no, put no pressure on me really, it was great. |