Out of control anger

[Howdowemoveforward]

Dp and I have muddled through a lot. We haven't, if I am honest got on for years. 10 years ago, when our children were little (both still live at home. Both at college) I told him after I had had enough of his behaviour that if he carried on like he was, eating drinking and smoking he wouldn't live to see his children get married, have grandchildren and all the other little things that make life wonderful.

I told him he was heading for a nasty illness. He said he wasn't going to have any illness dictate how he was going to live his life.

10 years on and he has been fighting stage 4 cancer. He has amazed doctors with his "recovery". I have put recovery in inverted commas as I can only go off what he tells us.

He has after several operations and several months of chemo been offered and is taking up an operation which we are hoping will see off any cancer cells that lurk for his type of cancer in the area which is the most common area his type of cancer spreads to.

On the face of it he should be happy and relieved. He is eating well and feeling good and has been from what I can gather a new lease of life if everything goes according to plan. I know nothing is certain but after being given only a few months to live in April he has the possibility of a complete recovery.

The only thing that is blighting our lives atm is his anger.

The anger comes from no where, it is like a switch from being perfectly coherent to complete rage. I dread the evenings, it gets to about 6.30pm and one moment you can be talking and the next he is screaming.
This evening after asking him if he wanted to come out he screamed that because I was taking the kids to a film and leaving him to have a quiet time in, he is always complaining about the noise the kids make.
He was screaming that we were treating him like he was already dead, that yes he was dying and would soon be out of our lives.

We left with him shouting a string of expletives after us and other choice language.

We got a mile up the road only for him to call us completely enraged calling us all the names under the sun because "we" had lost the tv remote.

Ds tried to tell him that we would find it when we got back. It is not as though this is the only big tv we have. We have one in every bedroom and the remotes work on all tv's. He refused to use another remote and screamed at us down the phone for 5 minutes and wouldn't listen to reason that we needed to return to find the remote.

It was horrendous. I have never known anyone that angry over anything before let alone a tv remote.

We came back to find it in front of his chair.

No apology that we had missed our film just another huge screaming session about how we were too lazy, stupid, cretinus to be able to put the remote back where it belongs.

I cannot describe the level of anger. It was off the scale.

I know that I should expect anger with his illness but should it be at the scale.

then this morning it is like nothing happened

Sounds like either he needs to chat to a Macmillan nurse about some form
Of talk therapy / counselling, or perhaps he has cancer in the part of the brain that controls anger. X

My dad was exactly like this. Needed a lot of counselling to get past it. Even though his prospects might be good in the face of it, he's had a brush with death and that affects people in different ways, and can trigger all sorts of things.

Having said that, I also feel it's acceptable to lay down some boundaries 'I know you're not feeling great, but it's not ok to scream at me and the children'.

Is he on medication now? Some things e.g. steroids are known for making you angry. They call it 'roid rage'. Could that be a factor?

I know that he has had 6 months of steroids and various other pills. That he took for a few days to a week (depending on the pill) after each fortnightly chemo session.

He also is type 1 diabetic.

He won't see anyone as he thinks there is nothing wrong.

I have made an appointment at the doctors for the end of next week, first appointment I could get.

Whilst he is saying all the positives about how his treatment is going then the outbursts of how he is going to die soon is confusing.
I wonder if he is telling us everything is going well but actually his prognosis is worse than he is letting on or he is just turning into one of those people who just want attention by saying they won't be around for much longer so they get attention

I know that's sounds awful.

Could he be angry with himself, for 'bringing the illness on himself' and angry with you because you know that and he is ashamed.

I have no idea. All I know is that if anything is even a few inches from where it should be all hell gets let loose. Last night was the tv remote which was on the floor after it had fell from the arm of the sofa.
The anger was off the scale. At this rate it wont be the cancer that kills him he is going to have a stroke . When we tried to ask him what was making him so angry he couldn't say, just screamed at us some more.