Life seemed nearly perfect for Catherine and John Graves, who married in 2001 and lovingly merged two families that included six children. The couple also joined forces in a masonry business in Phoenix and looked forward to a bright economic and emotional future. But just a few years into their new marriage, John Graves showed signs of having an affair. He seemed to lose interest in his wife, squandered company money and disappeared for hours at night. Catherine Graves, now 45, even hired a private detective.
But it wasn't another woman who was the problem -- it was an aggressive and fatal brain tumor that had slowly caused personality changes and eventually killed her husband of only five years ...............................................
"First of all, we had a year of a really horrible marriage -- he went from loving me more than anything in the world to seeming like he didn't care about me at all," Graves said.
When the private detective turned up nothing nefarious, the couple sought counseling and John was diagnosed with depression. But after he suffered a seizure while in residential treatment, counselors sent him off to a hospital emergency room where a brain scan revealed a virulent glioblastoma, commonly called a glioma.
John Graves' tumor was located in the frontal lobe, which controls personality and emotion -- "the things that make you who you are," according to his wife. His short-term memory had started to fail and "he honestly didn't know where he was and how to get home," she said. "He'd be on the phone and not know who he was talking to. "I thought maybe he was doing drugs and drinking or he was depressed and gambling," she said. Her husband underwent surgery to remove the tumor, but, like a lobotomy, it rendered him emotionless. The steroid medication made him irritable and angry. He suffered repeated seizures.
Graves was sent home to care for him, not knowing when he would die...........
(Source: ABC News via Yahoo here)
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