Thirty minutes ago I was catching up on the latest episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
On the show, one of the housewives, who of course isn’t actually a housewife, has Lyme disease. She’s had it for years now but in this season her symptoms have seemingly gotten worse. Of course like any reality show, they are shot months ago, so real life gets in the way of the season and a couple of weeks ago it was announced that she and her husband David are divorcing after four years of marriage.
When the news broke about their divorce, I have to say it affected me more than I thought it would. I mean, divorce is sad in a lot of ways, but these are two people that I’ve literally never met and have no connection with other than me watching them on TV once a week during season. But Yolanda is sick. She has a chronic illness. And of course, so do I. When I read story after story in the tabloids and celebrity blogs about their divorce I was looking for any sort of clue that would tell me whether or not this divorce was caused by tension due to her illness. I wanted so badly to find a sentence or even half a sentence that would give me the little sliver of hope I needed to convince myself that long-term relationships where chronic illnesses are involved aren’t doomed from the start. Of course I don’t actually believe that, but when I’m having a bad pain day, it certainly crosses my mind.
Most of this season of the show has focused on conversation around Yolanda and her illness. More specifically: how she acts with said illness.
As I was watching tonight’s episode, a scene at Lisa Vanderpump’s house with Lisa Rinna and Kyle Richard began to play. I was on Twitter catching up with the news when I realised what they were talking about. In so many words, some of the ladies introduced doubt surrounding Yolanda’s illnesses due to the fact that she had recently uploaded a picture of herself enjoying a vacation in Canada.