Hello Everyone!
I am new here my husband Jay has just literally passed 2 days ago. He passed in hospital after an almost 2 year fight with bowel cancer. He fought so hard and took everything that they could throw at him but in the end this beast of a disease decided it was taking him one way or another. At the minute everything just feels so surreal as if it is happening to someone else but that someone else is me. I am quite calm about everything now as if it is a sort of relief that his fight is over but he's not here now and I'm finding that hard to sink in and process that he is actually gone but know he is no longer suffering. I also find it strange now to talk about him in the past tense instead of `we have` is now `we had`. for example. We were best friends and soulmates for 40 years so a lifetime of memories to remember. All sorts are going through my head at the moment sadness, calmness, anxiety, anger all rolled in together. He had went into hospital in January 2022 and had all the cancer cut out and everything was clear so he was at the time he thought in the clear and it had all gone. I asked about post op chemotherapy but they said because everything was clear post chemo was not necessary and it not necessary it wouldn't be done. Five months down the line however, it was back so obviously cells too small to detect on a scan were missed and left to form again. I feel very bitter about that that they felt no post op chemo was needed but looking back at the time you are so elated when they tell you the cancer is gone that you are going to believe them when they say this is not necessary because in the end they are the experts but now I wonder if he did go through the post op chemo he would still be here now. We were not even given the option of post op chemo even though I asked if he could have it as a precaution. to stop it coming back at least. After he found out his cancer was back, he was started again on chemotherapy and at the time they put it across in a way that the recurrence wasn't as invasive as we thought so thought well a couple of zaps of chemotherapy will rid him of it. Unfortunately though, this is when all his problems began. After four sessions of CAPOX he became very ill and it had to be stopped and then after a break of a few months he was started on a new regime of 5FU (Irinotecan and Folfox). he only got to complete one session of that before he became very dehydrated and his kidney function dropped. He was then admitted to hospital where they finally diagnosed him with urosepsis and that the chemotherapy had damaged his kidneys so the chemotherapy had to be stopped completely. After this, he seemed to present quite a lot with sepsis infections. On his 3rd infection after being admitted to hospital they thought he would not pull through but did. They were preparing me at that time for him actually going but he held on and pulled through and came home once again. However the recent 4th one where he was admitted on the 1st June was the one which was going to take him well that and the cancer combined. He got through the sepsis once again and was improving, but then took a very bad turn and from then on his health just spiralled downwards to the extent he was hardly eating and only taking in fluids nut then at the end he could hardly take in fluids as his swallow reflexes had decreased also and his speech was virtually non existent. his breathing was reduced to a crackly gurgly sound which I know is known as the `death rattle` as I experienced this with my own dad when he passed with lung cancer 11 years ago. I went out to get something to eat from the downstairs cafe and came back up to his room and he was still gurgling away bt then I became aware that the gurgling sound had stopped so I nudged him on the shoulder I had been rubbing his shoulders and he was kind of batting my hand away previous as I believe it was annoying him but this time that didn't happen and then I called out his name still nothing and I lifted his hand and it just went limp and dropped to the side so then I went out to the nurses desk and said to them I think he is gone and two of the nurses came up to his room one checked him over for a pulse and called his name again and then she said `yes he is at peace now` more or less saying he had gone. I still maintain had he had that post op chemo he would still be here but now we will never know and for that unfortunately I will remain very bitter about.
