Guilt

Hi Mylovely,

Thanks for getting in touch. My name is Rachel and I’m one of the Macmillan cancer information nurses.

I’m so very sorry to read about your husband’s death, I can’t imagine what a shock this must have been for you and I’m glad that you’ve reached out to us about how you’re feeling.

Grief after the death of a loved one can be overwhelming, its’ not unusual for people to feel many different emotions including guilt or self-blame as they try to make sense of their loss. It’s important to acknowledge that these feelings are a natural part of the grieving process.

Please don’t feel that you have to go through this alone, there are several ways to get support. Talking can help, if you haven’t already you might have friends or family that you can talk to and share your thoughts and feelings with when you feel ready.

Here on the support line, we don’t have direct links to the NHS or access to medical records so we can give general information but can’t give specific advice about your husband’s death. From the information you’ve given, it sounds like his cancer was very advanced by the time he saw his doctor. Pulmonary embolisms (PE’s) can be a complication of advanced cancer. Saddle PE’s can develop quickly and cause death within minutes or hours of onset often before they can be diagnosed.

Talking to your GP about your husband’s postmortem results and the questions this has raised for you may help. Your GP is also well placed to offer you emotional support and can refer you to other services such as bereavement counselling if you think that might help.

Organisations such as Cruse and Marie Curie also offer online information and support and telephone bereavement support services which give you a safe space to discuss your feelings.

You might also like to reach out to others who understand how you’re feeling right now on our Bereaved spouses and partners forum on the Macmillan online community. It offers a warm supportive space to share feelings and emotional support with others in a similar situation.

I hope this helps, please don’t hesitate to come back to us or give us a call on our support line if you’d like to talk through this with us, we’d be happy to hear from you.

Take care.

Rachel

You can speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email. 

Ref: RC/ KS

Hello Rachel 

Thank you so much for your reply, it means a lot. I find the the ifs and whats that come to me often and wishing that my husband was still here. I never got the chance to say goodbye and say I love you because when I got home from work he was already gone. The ambulance took 40 mins and again I wonder if they would have saved him if they got there earlier. I did CPR on my husband. I'm lucky enough that I have got good friends and have made friends from the Sue Ryder site who are very supportive. I see someone at my doctor's who is a great help. It's just every so often the guilt comes back like a circle. 

Thank you again for your reply and information which has helped 

My lovely