Tired - husband medication side effects

[Poppity3]

My husband and I are really struggling to get through a week without an argument at the moment. We’ve had a tough couple of years.

During Covid he was diagnosed with a large pituitary tumour, so large it was affecting his eyesight. He’s on medication for it and the good news is that it’s quite a common type of tumour, although unusual in that his is very large. He had a lot of side effects on the medication he’s been given; he’s changed to another type which is more manageable but the main side effect that has continued has been intense tiredness.

I’m glad he’s getting the right treatment and that this tumour isn’t as scary as it could have been - we both feel incredibly lucky. However I’m coming to realise how the past few years have impacted me and I’m now getting to the point where I feel resentful of his need to have a lie-in, or nap in the day. We have three children aged 4,6 and 8, and I work full time, he is part-time from home. I get up with the kids, organise their days (school/holiday clubs), do the shopping, I sort the paperwork (including my DH’s), clean the house and try to organise help from family, which is kindly offered but not always easy to organise as they we’re not local to any family.

If I ask DH for an hours lie-in occasionally, it’s met with ‘I’m not sure how I’ll feel in the morning but will try’ so I’ve stopped this. If we plan to do anything or go anywhere, we almost always have to cancel or change plans based on him feeling too tired. Often I take the kids to see family on my own, just to ensure that they see their cousins occasionally. I fit in exercise and counselling around the family by doing it in the evening.

My issue is that I’m angry when DH makes plans without thinking about how it’ll impact us. I feel like he’ll risk going to the football with his mates and then sleeping all day the next day, but won’t take the kids out to give me a break because ‘it’s too tiring’. I get angry, we argue and he tells me I need to find ways to cope better because he is trying his best. I feel worn out and trapped in a situation that I don’t know will ever go away.

Sorry for the rant - anyone else got a partner with a pituitary tumour? Do the side effects get better? Am I being too harsh?

I don't have a partner with a pituitary tumour, but I did become disabled following an accident a while ago.

What happened was that my DH had to step up and take on the household and kid stuff because I couldn't walk and was on incredibly strong drugs.

He got very stressed, as did the kids, because the routine had changed and nobody liked the new routine. There was a lot of shouting from both DH and the kids.

With your partner, if he goes out to the footy with his mates, and is suddenly tired/ill he can just come home. If he is looking after the kids, and you are not around, he'll need to push through whatever pain/fatigue he is feeling to stay conscious and aware and keep them safe.

I've been in situations where I was looking after my kids (mine were significantly older) and despite my body telling me I needed to stop and rest I pushed through. On occasions when I've pushed through I've collapsed and lost consciousness, but my kids were teens and could cope.

If you could set up some kind of safety back up for him looking after the kids, so that if he does experience significant pain/might collapse he has someone he can hand over to it might work?

Hey @Octavia64 thank you for your reply. Your situation sounds very tough, I’m so sorry. For my husband, he will doze off if he is watching Tv with the kids, but isn’t at risk of any sort of collapse so it’s more about planning for how he will use his (limited) energy. And it is irritating that it will go on football rather than taking the pressure off me, although obviously understandable that he wants to do something fun for himself even when he’s feeling crap.

The bit about the change in routine did really resonate with me - I know that I’m angry about the situation and where that leaves me, even though it’s not his fault. Perhaps I need to accept it a bit more.

Not a tumor but a health issue which restricted what I could do and DH had to step up. He ended up leaving, what a charmer.
I'm sorry it's tough but the other person isn't enjoying it either, and feeling like a burden is horrible

So he has the energy for football with mates but not to take the kids out for two hours so you can have a break.
Medications absolutely wipe out energy, but he might have become conformable on some things.
You live with him, so you know which moment of the day, he is the most able within his medication limitation. He can take the kids to brunch, lunch, even the cinema and he can nap the whole movie.
He works part time so has the ability to plan a work day.
To ease the arguments, just plan a two-hour YOU moment in the week. It is in the diary. period.
This health even has changed the family dynamic. It has also changed your husband and this must have been traumatic for him. However, the whole family is adapting and he can help on this.

I imagine you would be fine with it if he had offered you a lay in but then come that morning said he wasn't well enough. For me the annoying part would be the 'well I might not be well enough/might be too tired in the morning' - like it's not even worth trying.

Can you have a chat with him and ask him to stop saying this. That you know it's a possibility and will always be aware that things could change on the day (as it could for any of us if a partner woke up unwell), but that you'd like to try and have some time planned in for you to have some extra sleep and a bath or something.

I am sorry, I found this thread on a search and hadn't realised how old it was when I replied!