Storm Part 3 (for partners of people with cancer)

[Willowkins]

Continuing the thread, mostly supporting partners of people with cancer - just in case it's needed.

The previous thread is here

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

@Spanielsarepainless he def needs it checking out. My DH cancer didn't need Chemo, his was just a tablet a day and he kept working all the way to the end ! Obv had side effects but nothing like chemo (he wouldn't have been able to have because of other health issues - but the tablet was actually the first line treatment)

He needs to know what he's dealing with - some lesions are harmless.

And yes dogs are the best, although most days you could take mine away ! She's a little bugger but we love her !

@MontyDonsBlueScarf

We're all doing ok, just one week left before 'normality' resumes and DS back to college - seems to have gone so quick. Had a 'man' in yesterday to sort out my garden - lots of 'crap' and 'stuff' there and it's been way down my list - so pleased with how it's finished. I could have dine it but didn't know where to start. I've hopefully signed up to a 6 week intro to plumbing course (it's over subscribed every year so fingers crossed) - it's the silly little things that DH just 'did'

@notapizzaeater yay for the plumbing, what a great idea. I'm on a one day introduction to woodworking course next week for the same reasons. I can't bear having a garage full of beautifully cared for tools just going to waste.

DH has agreed to the biopsy. So now we have to wait. He just wants to come home and see the dogs. Thank you for your kindness and the other poster who said how great dogs are.

Hope you're all doing ok?

It's another one of 'those days' today. It's my 30th wedding anniversary , my FB memories are full of photos of our 25th, we took all the family to Center Parcs. I bought us a picture of an old couple walking in the rain. We had such plans - not knowing the cancer was already there .....

I’m sorry. The loss of your future is hard to bare.

Oh @notapizzaeater it's a bastard disease that robs us of so much, I am so sorry.

Hi @notapizzaeater , it was 4 months last week for me. This last weekend DDS first birthday without him. I one million percent understand what you mean. Thinking of you xxx

I get it about the Would-Have-Been anniversaries. It would have been our Silver last year and I was so cross with MrW's DB and DSIL because they got to celebrate theirs and we didn't.
This Summer has been busier than I expected, culminating in DS passing his driving test and DD starting university.
It made me realise that I have been so blessed to have them still living with me over the last few years and of course that will change. I wonder who I'll be when I'm completely alone.

@Willowkins this is my main preoccupation at the moment. I’ve got 3 years till DD goes off to uni, and in that time I’ve somehow to find a way to living my life that’s sustainable without her at its centre. I mostly don’t actively plan killing myself because of her, but the argument with myself to keep going will be much harder to maintain once she’s out the house. So I know I have to somehow get from where I am now, to somewhere different by then. I just don’t know how to do that.

@Frikonastick I guess we all need a little help to answer that question. Please, if you're thinking of ending your life, please get help. See your doctor, talk to someone.

Don't assume your DD won't need you when they go to uni. Mine did - even if it was just a question about online banking and finding the bar of chocolate I'd put in with the saucepans.
I'm a few years ahead of you and it does get easier. I know a lot of people say that. Looking back, I was in a right state when MrW died. The worst bit was the PTSD but I've had a lot of therapy and it hardly ever bothers me now. At some point this year I decided to invest in me and what makes me happy. I'm finding it's the little things and actually putting myself first occasionally.
So I guess what I'm saying is please don't give up. Your life matters. A lot of people care about you. Take good care of yourself.

I have been diagnosed with ptsd too. I do see someone. On and off. I find it difficult to be consistent with the therapy. Mostly because nothing helps, nothing feels better so it’s hard to be motivated to keep talking. Everything feels like immutable fact. He is dead. I am dead too. Just, breathing still.

it’s as though I was set on fire, and I am burning to death, but still going about my life while that happens. It is all consuming, all encompassing, inescapable torment.

I believe it does get better, but in the same way I believe they put a man on the moon. It is equally distant, disconnected, impossibly removed from my reality.

Like I said, at the moment I don’t actively plan to kill myself, I’m just very aware that could change so easily when DD isn’t home. I have a timeframe to become a different thing to what I am now. I hope I make it. I want to make it.

thank you for taking the time to share with me where you are. It helps x

I tick a lot of boxes for PTSD too but I’ve got to get a job and don’t want any mh issues on my records. I saw the way dh was treated by the hosp drs, everything was attributed to his anxiety 🙄

Id quite happily go tomorrow. Nothing is ever going to change the fact that he died.

@Frikonastick I'm so sorry to read that you're feeling this way. I get it, I do. But I know that no matter how hard it will be (and I truly believe things will be a lot easier by the time she goes to uni because of the time that will have passed), you will stay here because you will not want her to lose both parents. She will need you still, always. Regardless of the fact that the uni holidays and long and she will be broke - she'll be back and staying with you lots. I know I was.

I'm struggling guys. My husband is starting to decline. He's 39 (I really wanted him to make it to 40 next year but not going to happen) and I am just so heartbroken to see him suffering both physically and mentally. How can one cope with knowing they won't get to see their kids grow up? Our eldest is 6 (and struggling) and our youngest is 1. It's just horrific. I have been holding it together until now and now I have no idea how anyone actually survives this trauma. He is the love of my life and the best dad. And I'm normally sociable but am finding I hate everyone and can't believe that everyone's lives are continuing happily while ours are falling apart - it's like we're in a parallel universe, looking in. Does anyone have any advice please? The pain is just too much xxxx

Hello everyone, I wish I had something helpful to say but all I can do is share where I am. Though I will say that this time of year seems to be difficult in any event as the nights draw in and the weather changes. I've always felt depression hovering in the wings as summer comes to an end.

I am already completely on my own as we had no children, and my own family is well meaning but inept. Doggo is wonderful and does her best to look after me but I hate the house being so empty. It's 9 months on for me and I'm doing a reasonable job of rebuilding an acceptable life, but I hate every minute of it. So much energy to build something I haven't the slightest interest in. I just wonder what's the point?

And at the same time as it looks as if it's coming together on the outside, the void on the inside is getting worse and worse. I lived without love for very many years until I met DH but now that I have experienced what it's like to be loved I don't know how I can go on living without it. It feels like the sort of living @Frikonastick describes, dead but still breathing.

@seethebeauty84 I clearly remember that hating everyone and parallel universe thing from the first time I lost a partner 35 years ago now, I felt as if I was behind one of those transparent riot shields and nothing could get in or out. I wish I could remember what made it pass but all I can say is that eventually, it did pass, and I went on to have an amazing life with DH which was if anything informed and enhanced by the rubbish I went through to get there. I would not have been without that knowledge but by God was it costly.

Thank you all for being here.

@seethebeauty84 We survive it because our bodies carry on living. That’s the only reason I’m still here.

Hi, need to share, just had the most awful night with my partner crying in pain, morphine making very little difference. He’s on palliative treatment, very weak and frail, and I feel things are coming to an end. We have three teenagers, one still in school and I’m struggling to spare them from seeing horrors of end stage cancer 😕
Ive followed this thread from when my partner was diagnosed 16 months ago, he was given just three months to live.
@seethebeauty84 i can totally relate to how you’re feeling, I’m very angry and hate everyone right now. I feel very isolated but don’t want to see anyone, and don’t know how much longer I can deal with this trauma and sadness before I break down completely. I’m so tired.

@Hardtimesnow and @seethebeauty84 , I genuinely am with you in spirit. it’s the hard march now, where you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, or the lamps of those who walk beside you. But we are here. We are here.

The GP needs to urgently reassess his painkiller if he’s in pain, there’s stronger meds than morphine.

It’s so exhausting, I had no help either just a nurse once a day to do his syringe driver. When he went to hosp to die pal care told me they’d put 4 drugs in one driver, maximum is 3. He had a calm death after she changed his drugs.

@FormerlyPathologicallyHappy im glad to hear your partner had a calm death, I know it’s possible as I’m a nurse myself and have looked after people at end of life. His meds are changing all the time, but they seem to go from working ok to not at all very quickly, and always in the middle of the night. I’m hoping the hospice doctor will come out today and re-assess.

@Hardtimesnow @seethebeauty84 holding you in my thoughts.

Are the district nurses or the palliative team coming in to see you @Hardtimesnow? Holding your hand from afar, it is the hardest thing we do.

@CopperSeahorses No unfortunately palliative care team are not coming, they said he had to go into hospital to be assessed, the very last thing either of us wanted for him. We didn’t have to go via A&E but still in for a long wait.

Do you have a local hospice?

Yes, they’re involved and very good, but wanted him to be checked out to rule out any other cause for his symptoms.