Two hours of sleep and now wide Awake and that train load of thoughts, concerns, worries charging into my head again. Like you guys, been here so many times before over the years, so it’s not so frightening as it used to be, particularly as I have this site and you good people in my corner. So I’m going to waffle on her, don’t care if anybody reads it really, it’s just dumping stuff of that train at this station and my train of thoughts etc gets shorter! Sorry! You can stop reading now cause what follows at this time in the morning is probably badly splet and badly expressed or just plain daft!
Fairly new to this site but have previously contributed to sites for the bereaved. When my first wonderful, Amazonian wife died from breast cancer quite frankly I was suicidal with grief. I had never felt such a complete emptiness in my whole being, my whole soul ached for Sandra. Why the sun bothered to rise the day after she passed away was a complete bewilderment. I was that close it frightens me now to think back on it. That’s why, now having been diagnosed with this wretched disease I can say that those that care for me, in some ways, have a worse time than I do.Straying from my point now.
Back then I was saved by another wonderful woman who lost her husband to cancer 5 years before my wife died. Martine had coped for many years after her husband died, bringing up two teenage boys, on her own. Martine was a South African, highly intelligent (Mensa member) and had that typical South African blunt honesty and way of dealing with problems that was completely refreshing, so different to my very reserved English way of dealing with things. Martine tried many things to enable her to cope with her bereavement and passed on to me those techniques and ideas to me when Sandra died. Those tools brought me back from the brink. I survived with her help.now I try to pass on those ideas to others dealing with cancer first hand, in the hot seat and to those supporting them/us in the hope they may just help 1 person in some way.
Sandra herself saved me from a meltdown after my first partner took my two young boys away from me when they were 2 & 3. Every Dad loves their children, but with my two boys they were my life. Cutting out the gory details leading up to this point in my life, I was totally devoted to my boys and devastated to be parted from them. Sandra was a divorcee with two boys of her own when I met her and had been through a messy divorce and custody battle. I wanted my children back and Sandra supported me through the stresses and heartache of dealing with a legal system and social norm biased in favour of Mothers. It cost me my house in legal fees and my parents and I suffered abuse and police investigation instigated by my boys Mother. The threat of imprisonment is a terrible thing even when you know you are 100% innocent. You hear of miscarriages of justice and worry you are going to fall down that path. It was a hugely stressful time. I applied for custody and sacked my solicitor when he told me the best I could hope for was seeing the boys every other weekend, the norm back then. A hugely expensive London solicitor later, and then representing myself as I had run out of money for the final hearing, I got joint custody of the boys for the next 3 years and then every weekend after that and half all school holidays. Not the result I wanted but social services backed down at the final court hearing after pressure from her army of legal advisors put pressure on them just before they gave their opinion which 24 hours before was that I should succeed in my application for custody. A hugely unfair and torturous turn of events in my life. But I had Sandra in my corner and we made the best of it and gave my boys a wonderful childhood upbringing as best we could.
Sandra was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer after we had been together for 8 years. Our relationship had developed in the years of helping me to try to get custody of my boys. We had rough patches of course, both working hard, long hours and trying to integrate two families is not for the faint hearted, but it’s not until you are stareing down the barrel of the cancer barrel with the threat of losing that rock in your life, do things come into focus and the fundamental love becomes evident.
Sandra was the strongest woman, no person, I had ever met. An unstoppable force totally devoted to her two boys. She was not going to let this cancer win. Lumpectomy, radio & chemo later she was in remission, or so we thought. Sandra and I were involved in a charity that organised an annual pilgrimage to Lourdes in France. It was an arduous coach, train, ferry journey for about 600 Catholics of which 150 were very sick and some of them did not last the whole trip they were so ill but so desperate to visit the miracle of Lourde. After her treatment Sandra went to Lourdes and upon her return asked me to marry her which we did that year in Scotland near Loch Gilpide. Two years later, after 4 years of passing her annual cancer checks she fell ill. Terrible leg and stomach pains, sickness, headaches. Two paramedic visits, two trips to A & E and several doctors visits all discounted cancer as she had passed her annual screenings. Pain killers prescribed she fought through. Sandras eyesight was troubling her at work in her left eye. That Easter in 2010 I took her for an eye test. It was horrendous for the poor optician. Devastating for Sandra and I. A tumour behind her eye was the problem. The nightmare had returned. I think at that point looking back, the fight went out of her. In the next few weeks Sandra became a wheelchair bound and lost much weight. The oncologist told us she had 3 months. There was nothing they could do apart from another round of chemo, but after her last sessions, she had suffered so much, she swore she would never have it again. It was a death sentence.
But the enemy had been identified. The old Sandra returned and the fight was on again. I nursed her night and day, in and out of a hospital and then a wonderful hospice where we lived for two months and she plateaued.Sandra didn’t want to die at our home so from the hospice we moved to her mums who took care of her during the day, Sandra insisted I go to work, but I nursed her again and dealt with all her meds evenings and night.
