Start of treatment

Hi Jen,

I am quite new here so I don't know anything about your husband's cancer but, as someone with leukemia, maybe telling you that the way you feel is really normal isn't helpful, but it IS true!  But you kind of learn to live with it I think.  It's hard to explain.  

When I was first diagnosed it was by accident.  I'd been ill and having routine blood tests etc for a while, then changed doctors and went for my results, honestly believing I'd have some kind of infection or something they just hadn't spotted before and when they said the dreaded words, all I could think to say was "when will I die?"  I didn't seem to hear anything else, despite the fact that they kept reassuring me the treatment percentages had great results and that, hopefully, I wasn't going to die!  It took me ages to get my head around just the diagnosis and probably two or three months before I felt comfortable talking even to close friends about it.  It was a subject I refused to discuss at home with my partner as I just didn't feel ill enough to have leukemia - if that makes sense?

Over the months, I won't say it's got easy, it hasn't, but I've had various types of treatment, some more invasive and life-affecting than others, but somehow I seem to have gotten through them.  It ISN'T EASY and anyone who tries to say it's a breeze just isn't being truthful and it IS very hard to explain to other people, particularly when you're finding it hard yourself.

I sometimes think it's harder for my other half and my friends than it is for me in some ways, as they worry about all sorts of things but rarely own up to me about them beforehand as they are concerned about worrying ME!  So they imagine all kinds of things I think.

I'm sorry, probably I'm not being much help. I suppose I just wanted to say that, somehow or other, you DO get used to the up's and down's being part of your life.  The trick is to stop them taking over your life - and that really IS something you have to work at.   I let it take over for a while, everything revolved around it until even I was sick of it!   I have quite a lot of days now, as I'm now in a more active phaze of my leukemia, when things are very hard to deal with.  Some days I just stay in bed and mope about but I do try to put a limit on that, one day is ok, but not longer otherwise it kind of takes over again.  I also set myself little "carrot" like things - small, manageable nice things on the horizon - not great big holidays which would be impractical, not even going out as that's often impractical on bad weeks too, but just small things like watching a DVD with my other half (which is a treat as he so often works away from home!), maybe breaking with my careful dietary plans and having a bag of crisps (naughty!), just enjoying "normality" even if it isn't exactly "normal" any more.

I hope things go ok with his treatment and hopefully you'll update us on how he's doing and how you're coping with it all?   Carers and partners (don't much like the term "carer") really don't always get considered properly but I know from my own other half, that he has had a REALLY hard time with it, seriously, he couldn't deal with it at al at first, and it's still something he finds hard - so talking about it IS a good thing.  

Hugs to you and to your husband. xx