There are marriages built on chemistry. Others on comedy. And then there are marriages built on someone kneeling beside you when you’re in pain, saying, What can I do?
For actress Susan Yeagley (Parks and Recreation and Rules of Engagement) and her husband, comedian (and former Saturday Night Live cast member) Kevin Nealon, the vow “in sickness and in health” wasn’t theoretical. It was monthly.
For years, their lives revolved around three days off every four weeks. Around emergency room visits. Around guessing. Around pain no one could name.
Susan Yeagley stuns in POL’ ATTEU, alongside Kevin Nealon in John Varvatos.
Today, they sit side by side at the Gurus Magazine photoshoot, trading jokes and finishing each other’s sentences. But getting here required something deeper than humor. It required listening.
Susan’s symptoms began in her early 20s as period pain. By her 30s, it escalated. By her 40s, it had become something else entirely. “Every month, I was collapsing on the bathroom floor,” she says.
One afternoon, driving in Los Angeles along Melrose Avenue with her mother, the pain became unbearable. “I had to get out of the car because I was in so much pain,” she recalls. “I fainted on someone’s yard and looked up and saw the family in the window eating lunch. And I said, ‘Something’s going on with me.’”
In the ER, doctors told her it was a cyst, so she had surgery to remove it, but the pain didn’t stop. One of the doctors shrugged: “Well, welcome to your 40s. This is just how it is in your 40s.”
“So I thought I needed to be stronger,” Susan says. “I needed to buck up, and that this was what everybody was going through.”
Instead, the pain intensified. She was getting sick during her cycle. She planned to cancel three days of her life every month. She returned to the same doctor and heard the same refrain: It’s your 40s. Everybody goes through this.
At home, Kevin watched.
“She would be in the fetal position on the floor, screaming, crying, passing out,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether to bring her to the ER or call the paramedics, because it was like she was getting stabbed.”
Every month, they braced themselves.
“We kind of prepared for it,” he says. “I had to take her to the hospital when it got totally unbearable.”
Kevin had never heard of endometriosis. Neither had Susan.
“I learned about it,” Kevin says, and then turns to Susan, “I guess when you did, because you never did.”
They were both learning in real time—what it was, what it meant, and how long they had been living in the dark.
“I hear people now talk about their spouses going through terrible periods,” Kevin says. “I think that probably they should check that out, you know? Because nobody told us about that.”
Everything shifted when Susan found Dr. Iris Kerin Orbuch, a specialist who finally gave her pain a name: endometriosis. “I learned I wasn’t alone,” Susan says. “That this is a disease.” The diagnosis brought something unexpected: relief.
Kevin Nealon and Susan Yeagley join endometriosis specialist Dr. Iris Kerin Orbuch in support of Endometriosis Awareness Month.
“A doctor friend of mine says there’s peace in a plan,” she explains. “I had finally been given a diagnosis. Immediately, I felt, I’m not alone, and there’s a plan.”
The plan was surgery. It meant having a radical hysterectomy, which Susan underwent in August 2018. It was scheduled for an hour and a half, but ended up lasting for four and a half hours.
“When I came out, they had to cancel the people after me because my surgery took so long,” Susan says.
Susan says that according to her surgeon, Dr. Iris Kerin Orbuch, it was the worst case she had ever seen at the time. Before going under, she told her doctors, “It’s dealer’s choice. If you need to remove the ovaries, remove them. Whatever you need to do to keep me alive. I want to be healthy.”
Kevin adds another detail: there was an oncologist present in the operating room in case cancer was discovered. They waited anxiously for pathology results.
“They came back. I was completely clear,” Susan says. “Everything was fine.”
When she woke up, nearly everything was gone. “So I have breasts and a vagina and a big smile now,” she says with characteristic wit. The humor is a welcome change in perspective after what she endured.
Still, she recalls, the surgery threw her into menopause overnight.
“When you have a radical hysterectomy, you immediately go into menopause,” she says. Susan now wears hormone patches. “It just gives me that little boost, that little feel-good hormone.”
Kevin watches her closely. “She’s so in touch with her body,” he says. “She can tell when she’s dipping.”
But the most important shift wasn’t hormonal. It was relational.
When asked what meant the most during those years, Susan explains, “It was the consistency of him saying, ‘I’m so sorry you’re hurting. What can I do to support you? How can I support you today?”
Kevin smiles. “I learned how to listen in our marriage and not try to fix everything.”
“I wish you could have fixed this,” Susan teases.
They both laugh. It’s a laugh that carries history.
Seven and a half years later, Susan says, “I feel fantastic. I just feel like a new person.”
Kevin sees it too. “Between then and now, it’s just a whole different world,” he says. “I hate seeing her in pain. It makes me feel horrible. And to see her with this relief now, with this new life—it is a new life.”
Their calendar no longer revolves around dread.
“We don’t even think about periods anymore,” Kevin says. “And both of us are happier now,” he adds. Susan nods. “It’s so wonderful to be pain free.” There’s even a silver lining to surgical menopause. “I missed all of that,” she says. “No night sweats.”
Their life together still includes hospitals on occasion; Kevin himself has had joint replacement surgery. “We are not strangers to the hospital,” Susan says. “But now, the visits are no longer ruled by mystery or dismissal.”
When asked how important it is for a partner to show up during medical crises, Susan is unequivocal.
“I would not be with someone who didn’t stand by me 1,000 percent,” she says. “I could not imagine being with someone who didn’t love, support, cheer, hold a place for my recovery, and for this disease.”
Kevin echoes her. “Same for me, too. I’ve had surgeries before. She’s always been there.”
For Susan, the foundation was laid long ago.
“I think it’s at the altar,” she jokes when asked about a defining moment.
“Having a partner’s support is really everything,” she says on a more serious note.
Kevin admits that before the diagnosis, he misunderstood what was happening.
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“I thought she was experiencing really bad periods, like the doctor said,” he shares. When they finally learned it was endometriosis, “it was kind of like—that makes it much more understandable,” he says. “It’s a relief. And also understandable that this pain is so intense.”
Susan emphasizes the power of being believed. “I just wish I had known that this was a disease,” she says. “And it wasn’t about not being strong enough.”
For couples facing it now, her advice is clear: “Know what endometriosis is. Find a great doctor. Wherever you live, go and educate yourself. You’re not alone. Couples need to really listen to each other. If Kevin had something that took him out once a month, I’d want to know about it. I’d research the daylights out of it to make sure he was okay and supported. So giving the ultimate damn about your partner, that’s really important.”
Kevin offers his own advice on endometriosis. “Don’t wait,” he says. “It’s not gonna go away. Get whatever you need done as soon as you can. Why live in pain when you can hopefully have the means to get it fixed?”
Susan agrees. “With endo, it just gets worse. So the sooner, the better.”
They are also acutely aware of privilege. “We were very lucky that we could pay for this surgery,” Susan says. “There are so many people that cannot afford it. We need to make sure there are funds for all of the young women, teenagers, and everyone who can’t afford it. It’s critical.”
Susan tried everything before surgery—green juice, meditation. “I couldn’t pray my way out of this one,” she says. “It needed to be surgery.”
If there is one message they want readers to carry, it’s this:
“Listen to your body, and remember you’re not alone,” Susan says. “Trust yourself. If you feel that this pain has gone too far—that’s your truth. Follow that. Believe in yourself. Trust your body and go ask for help. Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s in your head. And don’t let anybody tell you you’re not strong enough.”
Kevin adds, “Find a good doctor. Ask around.”
For Susan Yeagley and Kevin Nealon, endometriosis was not just a medical journey. It was a marital one. It tested patience, demanded vulnerability, and required a kind of devotion that doesn’t trend on social media.
It looked like a husband comforting his wife. It sounded like him saying, “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.” It felt like being believed.
And in the end, it became something rare and radiant. Susan and Kevin’s love story is not despite illness; it was strengthened by it.
