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Bereavement

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my husband is critically ill, i am terrified

377 replies

lemontruffles · 01/01/2013 04:38

My husband has severe copd (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and yesterday had a severe exacerbation. This means he couldn't breathe properly and is now in hospital.

He is on a ventilator, and not responding well to this treatment after about 40 hours on the ventilator. I am utterly terrified.

I've come home to try to sleep, but can't.

He is only 61. He is terrified too. I simply can't think straight and am in a new and appalling world where nothing is right and everything is terrifying. I can't stop shaking with fear. Please hold my hand.

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NorthernLurker · 05/01/2013 13:26

Blush OJ - that's very sweet of you to say. I remember Steve and the huge courage and love you showed.

Xenia · 05/01/2013 13:39

Try get as much sleep as possible. Rest. Just go through each day as best you can.

I watched "Queen Victoria's children" recently on iplayer (3 parts) and she spent about 40 years never recovering from the death. Studies show some people manage to live with (you never forgive or forget) the death in 1 - 2 years for most people and a very few are locked into grief forever. I don't think psychologists have worked out how some people fall into one category or other.

TwoFacedCows · 05/01/2013 14:09

Lemon, you husbands sounds so lovely. It sounds like you had a beautiful and loving marriage. What a nice comfort to know how much your husband loved you, and I am sure for him it was a comfort to know how much you obviously love him.

Your posts being a tear to my eye and make my heart feel very heavy with sorrow, and a lump in my throat.

The greatest gift we can all receive in life is to experience a love like you and your husband obviously had.

You are in my thoughts and prays, and i am sure your husband is looking down you with a big smile and lots of love.

puds11isNAUGHTYnotNAICE · 05/01/2013 14:40

Hi Lemon, I just wanted to offer you and your family my deepest sympathies.

The way you talk about your husband is so very moving and beautiful. It is a pleasure to read about the life you shared and all the wonderful things that made him who he was.

I hope that you can find comfort in these memories, and that you and your family can continue to support each other through this painful time.

lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 15:17

I cannot express how wonderful the support, advice and loving kindness of everyone here is. Thank you.

Things have changed in an extraordinary way which I'd like to share with you.

The day before yesterday was utterly terrifying, rising panic which I struggled to breathe rhrough

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lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 15:30

Posted by mistake:

I started to feel that I had no more strength to keep going, I was completely exhausted in every way, terrified, distraught.

Just at this point my husbands brother in law phoned. My husband's sister died very suddenly 15 months ago, so he is a recent widower. I don't know many people who have lost a spouse because I'm youngish to be widowed, 52 years old, so hearing from him was very important to me because he knows about this particular sort of loss. Anyway, he gave me some advice, and we talked about my husband in a normal way. During the call I could feel my thoughts calming and my panic lifted. Suddenly I felt very, very calm. A strange numb calm.

I just took this as a blip, but the terrifying panic hasn't come back; its been replaced by physical exhaustion - which I know will be sorted out with some sleep - and a deep deep sadness that he isn't here, and can't be here. This feels like the beginning of a path in a strange, bleak lonely landscape into my future, and I feel it is going to be very, very hard to start walking along it, but I'm out of the maelstrom.

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lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 15:42

Before I tell you what happened next, please let me tell you something about me. I'm quite an unsentimental person, quite pragmatic, quite grounded. I daydream a lot, but I don't have any problem understanding the difference between daydreams and everyday 'real' life. I'd describe myself as a realist. I want you to get a clear picture of me as I am before I share with you what happened.

Neither my husband and I were religious, although we both felt a deep spiritual attachment to the countryside, plants, birds above us, to nature and the natural world. This makes us sound rather new agey, which we aren't, he was a daydreaming pragmatist like me. What I'm trying to say is that spiritual matters weren't anything we discussed or focussed on. We found that long walks gave us an intense feeling of connection with our world, maybe you could describe that as spiritual, I don't know.

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lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 15:49

(I'm posting in bits as I go because I'm writing on my phone, and past experience has taught me its all too easy to lose everything by mistake.)

Yesterday I was calm, sad, horribly sad, but calm enough to begin the practical things I need to begin. My friend arrived to take me to the undertakers. As she left our house she picked up a very shiny penny from the pavement right outside our house, and gave it to me. I would never have bothered doing this, and she told me today that she wouldn't normally do this either, but she felt a need to, and did. It was, as I said, very shiny and bright, that's why it caught her eye, and its a 2012 penny. On the reverse side its got part of a shield - if you collect all the coins in this range you get a shield with 4 sections. This section has part of a welsh harp on it. I glanced at it, realised it was a harp, put it in my bag, carried on to the undertakers, didn't think about it at all, just had the thought of it in the back of my mind.

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lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 16:01

Much later in the day, after arranging his funeral, and making lots of necessary calls relating to various matters to do with his death, I remembered the coin, took it out of my bag and decided I'd find out if it really is a harp. It is.

One of the great joys we both shared in life was a love of music. He taught me how to love and listen to all sorts of wonderful music, he had great taste informed by joy. He had wide ranging and eclectic tastes, always finding some new thing to play to me - some wonderful, some more challenging shall I say. I don't know how to describe this, but for me, who was sad and depressed and emotionally repressed when I met him, the music he shared with me sort of represented everything good between us: that deep joyous flowing connection which is love. And as he became more ill, and eventually virtually housebound for most of last year, and we couldn't go outside together and walk intimately and silently, the music became even more important.

Remember, I'm not a sentimental person yet I knew somewhere inside me that he had given me this coin, and I felt a calm happiness that felt like a sort of protective warmth. Very deep and calm.

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Rosa · 05/01/2013 16:04

Lemon it sounds as if your BIL can give you lots of support. As for the penny keep it safe..... How are the children coping ? Hope you manage to get some decent sleep .

BellaVita · 05/01/2013 16:09

Lemon, you write so beautifully.

As I said in one of my earlier posts I have thought a lot about you every day and wonder how you are and how you are managing to cope x

aJumpedUpPantryBoy · 05/01/2013 16:10

Lemon, your love for your DH shines through every post you write.

Your posts bring tears to my eyes.

Charlie01234 · 05/01/2013 16:18

I am so sorry for your loss x

lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 16:19

Later on I went to bed. I'm sleeping on his side of our bed. There's a mantlepiece next to the bed which I put my shiny harp penny onto. I kissed it first. Then I noticed something odd: there's a clock of his on the mantlepiece. I put the penny down next to it. The clock is like this. It's under a small clear dome, and there's a clockface, under the clock itself is a sort of metal bar and on the bottom of the bar are 4 little arms which swing round one way, then swing round the other way - sort of like a pendulum except that instead of swinging back and forth, the little arms rotate one way then the other.

As I put the penny down I noticed that the speed of movement of these arms drastically speeded up, just for about 30 seconds, then slowed down to the normal pace. Here he was again.

This morning I took a step into our garden, and watched as 3 crows flew over my head. He loved those crows, his favourite birds, and he watched them every day last year - he couldn't go outside but he loved watching those birds.

I got several cards today, and felt I needed to open a certain one first. It had a poem on the front, which I've seen before but its never had any real meaning for me. I'll write it out in a bit; I'm sure you'll recognise it.

He's here, but not the way he used to be. He's something spiritual now, not human, we are in different spaces of this universe, but somehow - how? - he's finding ways to reach me and comfort me in this human world that I still live in. I can't really find the words for this extraordinary new understanding I have.

This is love, this is the whole and entire nature of love, and love is the heart and soul of the universe if we can quiet our human minds and allow ourselves to hear this other world.

This is not a sentence I can ever imagine ever writing, but it is true.

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chimchar · 05/01/2013 16:23

Lemon. I'm so glad that you have had some small relief from the awful all consuming panic and fear.

I love your story about the penny. I had a similar thing happen when my mum dies very suddenly and unexpectedly. I had a bright white feather.

Treasure it and if it helps you to feel close to your lovely husband, hold it or carry it with you.

Sending a little hug to get through another day. X

chimchar · 05/01/2013 16:24

X posted with you lemon.

I'm glad you're finding some comfort from these special things that are happening.

X

KristinaM · 05/01/2013 16:32

You are finding the strength that is within you. All the good things that you have learned from being with him, how you grew together and supported each other-all these things are not gone. They are part of you now.you are not the women you were when you met. You will get through this and all these things will support you. Death has taken away the future together that you hoped for but it can't take away your past, the life and the love you shared.

lemontruffles · 05/01/2013 16:33

I know I have this very rocky path ahead. At the moment I'm out of the 'world'. I'm at home, surrounded by support from my amazing friends and family who have cradled me, held my hand and cried with me in my deepest turmoil and despair. I'm scared of having to go back out 'there', and it will be difficult - one step, another step - I will be busy and I have a lot of responsibilities. Walking along this new path will feel as though I'm walking away from him, I can sense that, and I'm going to feel very lonely and sad about that. Oh, I miss him so much! So much. But he's giving me strength now, while he can, to understand that even though he can't be here in my human life the way he was, and I sense that he is going somewhere farther away soon, I will always have the love he showed me, that love is the essential nature of his new world, its true, its real.

But our paths are separating now.

It's incredibly sad for all of us. He didn't want to leave us, we didn't want him to leave, but none of us had a choice. Now we have to find the strength to slowly, painfully, with our love behind us, to take those first steps. This quiet time safe in my home is the time that I can grow strong enough to take that first step.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you all for your kindness and support and advice. You have all been part of the cradle that has supported me to reach this new place, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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BellaVita · 05/01/2013 16:36

No, thank you Lemon for sharing your lovely DH with us x

7lbminigoals · 05/01/2013 16:40

Much love and strength to you and your family lemon - you write so eloquently and with deep respect and admiration for your husband.
Your posts have moved me to tears x

nothruroad · 05/01/2013 16:56

Lemon, I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Your husband sounds like an incredible man. Your love for each other and for your family shines through in your posts.
You are in my thoughts and prayers. x

Solo · 05/01/2013 17:02

Goodness Lemon you have me in tears with the depth of feeling in your words.x

Xenia · 05/01/2013 17:02

You are managing wonderfully well. We are about the same age. Every day still I wake up absolutely delighted and amazed my ex husband isn't there. You are lucky that you had those years with someone you DID get on with although it must be impossible to see it like that for now.

As for spirituality most of us cannot know what exists beyond death if anything, but it may well be he is there somewhere watching and that does comfort a lot of people in these situations.

I hope you save this thread. It is a lovely set of descriptions of how much you love your husband and what a shock even after an illness death can be.

NorthernLurker · 05/01/2013 17:24

Oh Lemon - it's so good to read you've had these experiences. You are absolutely right. That love is there with you.

ssd · 05/01/2013 18:28

hi lemon, I've pm'ed you, I hope you don't mind x