Time spent with illness has given me a new life perspective

Time spent with illness has given a new perspective on life - Hans Jorgen (62) and Merete (60) are married. Hans Jorgen has had one knee and two hip replacements.

With the knowledge we have today - also about how the operations have gone - I wish you'd had it done earlier. So he would have been spared some of the things, and that time when he was in pain and felt constrained. Again, it is the fact that you only listen to other people who offer negative input. One gets scared of having to undergo surgery, what if I start feeling worse than I had been. At the end I was in so much pain that I said it really didn't matter. It just has to be done.

It's affected us in the way that we've found out that trivial matters are trivial. There are other things in life that are more important than anything we previously could get annoyed at each other over. So we say: "Oh well, never mind - it'll work out anyway." Again age is at play - you accept that you're getting older and you can't do the same things anymore. Now that the knee is fine again, it's just age I have to take into account and not the disability.

I absolutely think that going through an illness and the recovery afterwards strengthens a relationship, so one can get over things and see that some things in life are tough. Life doesn't go according to a line, and isn't always a bed of roses. You can get through ups and downs, and get through it well. One helps each other and makes room for each other during those periods when one party needs it more than the other. I think that is a great strength and quality.

That's right, "never mind" has become a saying that fits much more. What is it that is important in life, and what is it that's just nothing and trivial? That's certainly how I feel. That is a quality we have got as a side benefit of having to fight an illness: that you can get through it and get through it well.