March 12th - bad day

Hey Springerfan thanks for your post. I am sorry your husband is too suffering from this thing called cancer... I hope you find your help and support and get through it as best as you can. It is hard and there are harder days than others. I was happy to find this group, it is good to have somewhere to go for support.Big hugs to you :-)

Hey Ebonybo, I feel your pain I really do. Sometimes life just really deals some bitter blows. I don't know how I am dealing with it all, but because at the moment my husband has no evidence of disease after his lymph nodes were removed, the only way I can cope is by thinking it won't come back. He has a 75% chance of mets showing up elsewhere, but all I can do is try to stay as positive as possible that we are doing the best we can to beat it and although it may seem a very insignificant thing we are trying to beat it by completely changing his diet. At least this way I feel I am actually doing something positive rather than just watching and waiting. I do have days when the doubt and fear creeps back in and as you saw the other day I was having a real low couple of days. I suppose it is to be expected. It's not like a hideous accident, or a sickness that you recover from after huge worry and strain. It is something that even if you do have successful surgery it will always be in the back of your mind will it recur? That is what I battle with sometimes.

I sat down and had a big chat with my husband about my feelings and he even suggested that if I didn't mind he would read my posts on here, to help him to understand where I am coming from. That helped a lot and we seem to have become closer again. Maybe it was me who put up the wall as I was unable to explain to him how I was feeling as I was worried about hurting his feelings.

I hope you do feel less alone now. It took me a while to be able to post on here, but am so glad that I did. Everyone is so helpful and kind. I had to selfishly take a step back and stop reading all the posts on everything that wasn't relevant to me and my situation and only reply to my posts and ones I felt I could maybe help with, as I found that it was making me worry more and a bit more down if I read too much stuff. It felt like cancer was taking over a bit. I have now found a happy medium I think of being there to support others if I can and getting support when I need it. It is early days yet and I suppose I am still learning how to deal with my feelings and emotions. I am guessing it is the same for you as you found out around the same time as we did. Shitty Christmas present eh?! Sorry you had to miss your time here. :-( It is stupidly hot and horribly humid as summer has come ridiculously early if that is any consolation -  Cavelossim is only 40 minutes from me! Sending you a big virtual hug. (((o)))

Thank you Tufty7 and a very very big hug back as I appreciated very much you taking the time to write back.Unknown to me my hubby had made an appointment for me to see the GP later on the same day ( my birthday).....He got me there under the pretence that it was about my HRT...my BP was 210/80 and then it all came out......I cried like a baby and god love him he gave me so much of his time I will never be able to Thank him enough! Like you I let my Hubby read this thread and he too broke down and the barriers between us which resembled the Berlin wall crumbled....I think it made him realise just how low this bobbing along 'swan ' was doing, gliding on the top but peddling like hell underneath!I do believe admitting to having this mixed up head helps, don't understand it yet, but I've contacted McMillan to chat with someone as I have many issues from childhood which I've never dealt with... I just think this has brought everything to the fore.

Hubby has started radiotherapy now......but its the BIG Op which to be honest scares the hell out of both of us!!! His aim is for the Ilieostomy to be reversed before his BIG birthday next February....and who knows it would be good to meet up in Cavelossim/ Varca or wherever you are to turn your virtual hug into a real one, because you will never know what your elequent words of my feelings did for me.Thank you xx

Hey Ebonybo... so glad that I helped you! I am not feeling so eloquent today...:'( I had to drive to Panjim this morning and on the drive I was trying to sort out my feelings... I was not feeling so angry and  I realised then that when I am not feeling angry I am feeling scared, sick and worried about the future, so in some ways it is easier to be angry... which of course I know it isn't, but I just don't know how to feel normal. Will I ever be normal again?! I felt a bit better and thought I would talk to my husband about what I had discovered, got home and then immediately initiated a small argument over something stupid, because he had done yoga without me(which he learned when he was away on a 7 day detox and I don't know how to do alone as I am learning now from him) and he didn't ask me or give me the chance to say whether I wanted to do it with him. Sounds really petty and I guess it is, but I was out doing stuff for him and us and could have come home earlier to exercise, and he learned it when he was having 7 days of himself time. I am feeling shitty about my weight at the moment too as I have put on weight, so any exercise is welcome. I guess I feel that it would have been nice to have been asked. All I want is to feel like I am important in his life still and at the moment it feels like I am not. Somehow I have got it in my head that he doesn't think about me as often or care about me as much. When we talk he often doesn't remember what we discussed and it makes me feel like I don't matter. The silly thing is that I know that he has a lot on his mind and is still working but that doesn't help with my psyche and doesn't help me with feeling so worthless. I kind of feel invisible. I have talked to him about it, and it did help for a bit,  but somehow the wall is back, and today he said (which I can understand) it is so hard to show caring feelings when I am angry and pushing him away all the time. I told him that either I am angry or I am scared and worried about the future. I then burst into tears and came upstairs. I know I need to talk to someone, but I don't know who, and also when it comes down to it the barriers go up and I don't know if I will be able to. I guess I get embarrassed. I have been to the doctor here before as I also have issues from childhood that I never dealt with and he said what have I got to be depressed about....kind of put me off really. My husband did say that he would call the first surgeon who operated on him and ask about counsellors as I felt too embarrassed to ask. But I guess he has forgotten which again makes me feel like he doesn't care, like he is the only one in this... I feel like I am constantly thinking about him and what he should be eating, how I should be preparing food, going on our dog walks at certain timings because of the sun... I also feel guilty as I must be putting more stress on him by being like this... but all I want is a bit of TLC too!

It is all a complete vicious circle! The more I nag at him about feeling uncared for the less it helps! Obviously!! ARG... you know the real stupid thing? I can see what I am doing wrong but I just can't fix it... How do you glue the bottom back on your world without leaving cracks?

I am also starting to worry about the 3 month check as that is coming up this month...

I so hope that you get some relief from talking to a MacMillan nurse. I will let you know when I pluck up the courage to see what I can find here in the way of counselling! I hope your husband's op goes well. Thanks for the virtual hug and maybe see you in Goa with a happy cancer free hubby!

Take care and big hugs to you... I am going to have to write on my blog one day when I am feeling positive for a change!!!... ;-)

Oh Tufty7.....flitting emotions is exactly how I feel.......we seem to be on parallel journeys.....from different parts of the world ...how wierd is that! I know exactly what you mean by just wanting to feel important ( and then you feel guilty for feeling you want to be important)...Rationally I know its because everything revolves around the cancer /treatment/hopefully the cure, but irrationally I don't want it to exist and therefore by resenting it I can almost pretend in my bubble that it doesn't exist! God I HATE the thing.....its taken away normality, humdrum , stupid normal things! My husband has an 88 year old Father who lives 97 miles away and up until this we travelled every 2 weeks to shop, clean etc for him....this weekend we have a weekend for us.....so where does my hubby want to go......to his Fathers! Perhaps men are from Mars after all and their perspective is different but I was wanting us time and he's wanting to spend it with a selfish old man who wished him 'good luck with that' when he told him about the cancer!... I know how you feel cos my hubby doesn't talk much although if a third party asks him about say something that went on at treatment he goes thread through the needle..I just feel that I'm taken for granted that it doesn't matter to make the effort with me! He blames it on chemo brain which I do think is a bit of a cop out! His op is not far away and radiotherapy just startingboth will take an awful lot away...infact despite my diazipan the GP gave me I was awake at 5am today drinking tea!My Head is so so full of reasons, consequences,a future that is so different to what we had planned, I want a magic wand and be able to turn the clock back and as childish as that may sound I can't express it any other way! by the way I'm 53!

I really don't think we can glue the bottom back on our worlds I just think we have to make sure that the cracks arn't too wide or deep to slip through.....I'm not holding my breath on McMillan as I rang last Thursday and I still havn't been contacted!To be honest I'd been warned by others about empty vessel syndrome!I can understand that with the 3 month marker coming up you are starting to almost hold your breath...I would be exactly the same.

Did feel a little jealous when you mentioned Panjim....isn't the spice market crazy there!!! are you inland then or near the coast? If all goes to plan we will be there next winter.!! But plans and Cancer don't run parallel do they??? I wish your husband well for his check up and I really am thinking of you,Someone once said its the partners that suffer the most as you are helpless.........maybe in time the patients themselves see that ( my cousin did, she's in remission from breast cancer).

My Love and thoughts are with you.

Lynn

Hey Lynn, I have also pm'd you. Maybe your husband wanted to do something normal that you usually do to break the feeling of being 'sick'. I know mine is like that. He just wants some normality in his life. Which is good in some ways, but sometimes leaves you feeling exasperated and upset, as you want to make the most of your time. Perhaps, as it is early days yet for both of us, in time we will get to know how to deal with it better as a couple and know each others needs and respect each others quiet times or 'normal' moments. I think it is such a trial as the person that you usually lean on for support and understanding is now also needing that, so it is a bit of a juggling act.

As I said in my pm we had a good chat as I emailed him re my feelings and I had a big cry on our walk on the beach and we just stood hugging watching the sunset which was very therapeutic and calming. We talked about both our fears and needs for the future and my husband's desire to do something a bit more fulfilling with his life and do some more of the things on his bucket list. I then realised that is maybe a little of why it felt like he was pulling away as he was thinking that some of the things he can't do because of his family commitments to us. Anyway, we are just going to have to work on some kind of compromise which keeps us both happy. I think we have achieved quite a lot. I am still going to pursue some sort of counseling as I can't just let anger build up till I burst. It's not healthy for any of us.

Lynn you have put onto screen everything that I have been thinking! So funny.. in a not funny way ;-)I too want to turn the clock back.

I hope you get to talk to a MacMillan nurse. I guess I am not missing much here then by not having one to contact!

I am around 7 minutes from the coast by car. But not in a real touristy area, as we live in a little village not too far away from touristy places but enough so we can live our lives day to day around people who are not on holiday. We lived in a touristy area for 8 months and it was hard to get as much done when you are working and everyone else has all the time in the world as they are on holiday! Crossing fingers that you will come next winter!

Hugs and thoughts to you,

Mel xxx