They assume the same stance several times a day: looking into each other’s eyes, his arms lovingly locked around her waist.Only this is worlds away from the ballroom dancing they enjoyed once a week for 10 years. Instead, he’s helping her rise from her wheelchair.While they’ve had to say a painful goodbye to their dancing days, Joyce (Wiese) and Walter “Rusty” Coon are still lockstep in love. They have been married 36 years and counting. As we turn our collective attention to Valentine’s Day, I was moved to bring to the fore a husband and wife who know what it means “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” Especially given the all-too-familiar talk about couples who move with lightning speed to untie the knot at the drop of a hat or the wrong squeeze of the toothpaste. We could all learn or thing or two from Joyce and Rusty, who’ve been madly in love since their eyes connected at Green High School. He was a junior and she was senior.For the most part, their core personalities (she’s a self-described Type A and he’s somewhere around a Z) and values (strong work ethic and devotion to family) have never changed.Perhaps that’s prepared them for this new challenge in their lives: multiple symptom atrophy (MSA). It’s a rare disorder, striking 44 out of a million, mostly men, with onset in the 50- to 60-year age range.This time it claimed Joyce Coon.Nobody saw it coming. In fact, neither Rusty nor Joyce — like most of us — had ever heard of MSA.But a huge crash course awaited them, one they continue to navigate.“I always thought we would see our 50th anniversary,” Rusty said tearfully as he cradled his 10-week-old grandson, Nolan Jensen, and stroked his wife’s shoulder.Sadly, there is no cure for MSA, and not much in the way of treatment. It just is. And it just takes and takes.Losing her balanceFor starters, MSA began knocking Joyce off balance, taking away the couple’s enjoyment of ballroom dancing.They first thought it was an inner-ear problem. But doctors quickly ruled that out with an MRI.Then came the unsettling diagnosis. “I knew that anything with ‘atrophy’ in the name could not be a good thing,” Joyce quietly reminisced while seated in an electric wheelchair in their home. The couple moved in late November from Green to a one-level Akron home with hardwood floors and handicap accessibility.Multiple system atrophy is, as the name implies, a failing of the body’s internal systems. In medical parlance, MSA is a neurological disorder associated with the degeneration of nerve cells in the brain, causing problems with movement and balance, blood pressure, breathing, bladder control and more. The Mayo Clinic is in the vanguard of MSA research, but there’s nothing new to report yet.MSA — not MS (multiple sclerosis), which it’s often confused with — forced Joyce to abandon the teaching career with Akron Public Schools that she loved. “I got the news [the diagnosis) Tuesday, the start of the 2010 school year. The students were to come the next day,” she said. “I wanted to finish what I had started. But I was already having trouble regulating my body temperature.“And I was having trouble with my handwriting. Here I was — a first-grade teacher [at Essex Elementary School] — trying to teach students to make an ‘A’ when I could no longer do it.”Joyce gets emotional when she thinks back to leaving. “I would just like the parents to know that I left for a reason. That still haunts me,” she said. “They entrusted me with their children.“But I left because I had no choice.”Weekly therapyJoyce, who turned 57 on Thursday, is in occupational and physical therapy once a week to hold the disease’s inevitable progression at bay for as long as possible.In the meantime, her 56-year-old husband has become her go-to guy in every sense. And he’s very comfortable in that role. “I tell him what I need and he goes and gets it,” was how Joyce explained their new reality.Rusty took early leave from his job at Ohio Edison to become his wife’s caretaker. “He took care of his mother when she was ill. He even moved in with her,” Joyce said of her husband. “I saw the love he had for her. Now I get it all. He does everything for me. Cooking, cleaning, laundry.”“But she still claims the decorating,” Rusty chimed in. “And she still picks out my wardrobe.”“He really could take off and hit the road,” Joyce said through a veil of tears. “But he hasn’t. … I can’t open the car door anymore, but we’re still having fun!”“She’s been good for me,” Rusty said, resurrecting the earlier reference to the difference in their personalities. “Her Type A meant she was always busy, while I was always the golden retriever, just happy to be alive and take direction.“People don’t know what their vows are all about until you face something like this,” he continued, blinking back tears.“You don’t know how many places really aren’t handicapped accessible until something like this,” Joyce explained. Some aren’t equipped with a true handicapped restroom. “So I have to take her into the ladies’ room,” Rusty said matter-of-factly. “One of these days I’m probably going to get arrested.”Network of family, friends Rusty and Joyce say they are grateful to be surrounded by an incredible network of family and friends; they still go out to an occasional dinner, and get email, texts and goodie packages. They enjoy traveling and shopping for antiques, although that’s become limited. They used to go to Cavs games; now they watch the team on TV.She’s especially grateful to her siblings for their support.Rusty has the same high praise for his Ohio Edison co-workers who gave up vacation days for him when Joyce began to have problems.As if MSA weren’t problematic enough, Rusty and Joyce find themselves dealing with never-ending paperwork that seems to lead nowhere. She’s still trying to get her disability retirement, and he can’t get his pension until he’s 60. So they’re living off their savings.“I just want people to know how wonderful my husband is,” Joyce seemed intent on sharing.He gives her pedicures, and takes her out for regular manicures.“She’s such a multitasker. She even has me dusting,” Rusty said, trying to interject a little humor into an otherwise grim situation.In addition to baby Nolan, they have two other grandchildren and a fourth on the way. They also have two loving children who have followed in their mother’s footsteps: Stephanie Jensen teaches kindergarten at Akron’s King Elementary School and Brian Coon teaches high school outside Indianapolis.As Rusty and Joyce Coon look to Valentine’s Day, they are content in the knowledge that their love story doesn’t need to be told by the size of the box of chocolates or the floral bouquets they’ll be sending or receiving.Rather it’s written upon their hearts.If you doubt it, just ask Rusty to open his shirt.In August, for their 36th wedding anniversary, he had wife’s name tattooed over his heart in small print.Jewell Cardwell can be reached at 330-996-3567 or emailed at jcardwell@thebeaconjournal.com.