“Patti Painter is a quiet powerhouse of a woman….[she] was married to a man with whom she had three children. She thought she had a “normal” life but then she found out that there was another woman – and that woman had been around for most of her marriage. She divorced and he moved to another state. She raised her children as a single parent, getting a job with a large Delaware company and going back to school. By the time she married Tom, both their children were teens and they had a couple interesting “blended family” years. One by one the kids left and she was looking forward to the empty nest with Tom… One year, when she was in her mid-fifties… she was diagnosed with multiple cancers, including cervical and colon (which her mother died from). She was in and out of the hospital for over a year, one surgery after the other.”
“Patti compared and contrasted those two experiences, infidelity and cancer, and said, “You don’t die from desertion, even though you think sometimes you might want to die. When you have a diagnosis of cancer, you definitely know that there is the possibility that you could die…it was certainly the greater threat.”
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