The title of my book indicates that I am a Clinical Social Worker, or a psychiatric social worker... a mental health professional, and a psychotherapist. So far, this might seem like a love story. It is. However, this story, everything I have written about so far and will describe later is related.

Being able to meet Lynn took a tremendous amount of effort and in a way, this was a story of success. Remember, when I was learning to overcome shyness, back in college (undergraduate college) I was interested in dating, finding a girlfriend, and ultimately having a family?

Self-actualization for me was found in the relationship I had with Lynn.

The same effort to overcome shyness would be crucial in my career including, but not limited to, my choice of career.

So, we got engaged to be married and our relationship grew.

We had in mind a life together forever as husband and wife. To live happily ever after. This story is a bit complicated though. Let me explain.

Like everyone else, we wanted a "normal life."

The problem was that Lynn was born with a chronic illness called Cystic Fibrosis (CF). This is an illness or disease that may not be known and understood by everyone reading this. It might be hard to understand the impact of CF on our love story.

Cystic Fibrosis affects about 30,000 people in the US, so it's a rare disease. It causes excess mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive tract.

Because of the impact of CF on the digestive tract, Lynn had to take a bunch of pills with every meal and had to use inhalers and other medications to maintain her health. She also needed various medical equipment for health maintenance.

Cystic Fibrosis affects a person's breathing. This includes, but is not limited to, decreased oxygen saturation in the blood and scarring of the lungs. This scarring comes from infections. Because CF causes excess mucus to accumulate in the lungs, this creates a breeding ground for bacteria, and the bacteria cause infections.

Over time, the scarring due to infections grows. This scarring is permanent. Decreased lung capacity then makes it hard to breathe. Lynn had some equipment to clear out the mucus that was accumulating in her lungs. I also learned the tapping exercises to loosen the mucus.

They taught me this at the clinic where we went for Lynn's medical checkups and treatments. I would cup my hands a certain way and tap her back, the side of her chest area, and the front of her chest. Sometimes she would or could do this on the front of her body, in her chest area. However, that can be tiring and so I needed to learn to do this right.

Lynn provided feedback on where I needed to do the tapping. She could tell where the mucus was in her lungs and where it needed to be loosened and cleared out.

She had a persistent and distinctive cough, also, as a result of this buildup of mucus.

Again, this mucus was a breeding ground for bacteria, as I said. So, we had to clear the mucus out.

As it is a genetic illness and she was born with it, it is a pre-existing condition. Maybe if I was able to get a job with a large company there might have been a way to get insurance coverage but even then, that's not guaranteed, and what if I changed jobs?

People might wrongly think that I am talking about the financial burdens of Lynn's medical care. I am not in any way speaking of the potential financial burden of her medical care and how insurance might help with those expenses. Even a so-called good insurance plan is NOT the solution.

Insurance is all about protection against things that might go wrong and the financial burden that one incurs when this happens. Take property insurance as an example. You purchase this in case your home is robbed or damaged. You can't buy insurance after your house is robbed and hope the insurance agency will pay to replace the property that gets stolen or damaged. You need to have insurance before your property is stolen.

I had that happen where I had property insurance and something was stolen. We estimated the cost and value of the stolen item and I was given a check or payment that was based on the current price of similar items.

So, this was about access to medical care that was crucial for Lynn's survival. I'm not complaining about how expensive this treatment might be. I am talking about the need to guarantee that she had access to medical care necessary for her continued living.

We discussed with the staff social worker(s) at the clinic when she went for treatment or for a checkup. We discussed the state health care plan that covers people with Cystic Fibrosis.

This seemed to be the only option. However, to qualify for this health care plan, her income had to be kept below a certain level. She had to live in poverty.

In addition, as husband and wife, if our combined income exceeded a certain threshold for a married couple, she might be dropped from the health care coverage that paid for her medical care.

CF is fatal, also. It used to take people's lives before they reached 18. However, people are living into their 40s and 50s, and beyond their 50s, now. Obviously, this is not enough! I would likely live so much longer than that. At the time, I told myself that they would cure CF soon.

This is the tragic aspect of Cystic Fibrosis - the shortened lifespan. It's hard for the person with the disease but it's also very hard for a spouse. I mean Lynn was my source of happiness. I was totally in love with her. I could not imagine a life without her.

We had to cherish each moment and live our lives in each and every moment. Dwelling on the reality of her shortened lifespan would deprive us of the experience of a normal life - normal in the sense of falling in love, getting engaged, and living together forever as husband and wife.

Our forever would have to exist in each moment we had.

Now, consider the cost of treatment. It is estimated to be over $6000 per year and could cost tens of thousands of dollars. We are talking about something more serious than our financial woes - we had to know that she could get the treatment she required - it was a matter of life and death, literally. Even with her mother being married to Bob, which meant that they had a substantial income, they never took a chance on her losing access to the insurance plan. They didn't say "Bob works for a big airline with great insurance so Lynn is safely protected."

Taking a chance on not having access to medical care was not an option. It would be morally and ethically irresponsible.

Lynn was relatively healthy for a long time when we were in our 20s and 30s. Occasionally, she had problems though. She might have to go into the hospital for IV antibiotics. That would bring the costs into the tens of thousands of dollars but I'm getting ahead of the story.

As you can see, this creates a problem in terms of taking our relationship to the next level and getting married.

What does a couple like us do? Just because a woman has Cystic Fibrosis doesn't mean that she doesn't have the same desires, hopes, and dreams as any woman or any girl.

I bet, dear reader, that you haven't put that much thought into a scenario like this. Unless you are living with this as a couple, you cannot know what it is like. I mean we wanted to take our relationship to the next symbolic level - to get married. This desire should come as no surprise.

Lynn had to deal with both of these issues - having a serious and potentially fatal chronic illness AND also being denied the option of a normal life where a woman gets married and has a wedding.

It was so painful and infuriating!

How dare we be denied the right to marry just like everyone else!

Occasionally, I would feel guilty back then about having sex without having had a wedding. I didn't like the fact that she called me her fiancé and that I was calling her my fiancée and yet we were having sex. I really hate talking about those moments. I didn't like how it made Lynn feel.

I don't remember what I would say but it would lead to Lynn asking, "do you regret what we do?"

I would always respond, "no, of course not." And I would feel such shame for making her feel like I regretted making love – expressing our love through sexual intimacy.

My sister worked for an insurance company and she may not have supported universal health care. Years later it would make me want to spit in the face of both of them for what I once heard that sounded like an expression of moral and emotional indifference when Mom said "the world's a dangerous place." It was offensive and disgusting.

I wanted Carrie to speak up and say that she had not considered a scenario like the one Lynn and I faced. I may have just misread what I was hearing by what Mom and what Carrie didn't say. At the moment I heard that it was disgusting, though.

I hope to share this book with Carrie and hope she will understand my momentary sense of outrage. I don't hold a grudge about this but it did hurt me.

Also, as I was Christian, I had been brainwashed with ideas about how you are supposed to act sexually. The teaching was that sex should occur only when two people are married. This would be problematic in our situation, obviously.

I had decided I was going to live as Lynn's husband even if we didn't officially get married. Our sacred union would not be denied based on the impossible position that the state put us in. I would say that in the eyes of God we were two that became one as it has always been... one body, one soul... one being. In the eyes of God, we were married.