In a vey deep dark place

I'm sorry to hear your husband died so quickly after been diagnosed with the same cancer my husband had. Maybe your work will let you have some time off if only for a short time. When i worked many years ago it was also as a teaching assistant, with young children, so they may be a short distraction for you if only for a part of your day. My husband passed away in July and i am not sure if i would have the mental capacity to work even if i had a job, but everyone is completely different, as i have been finding out the last few months. Take care of yourself.

PTP,

I'm so very sorry for the loss of your wife and that you are having to experience this terrible pain.

Like you, my husband and I had no children.   We were married for 38 years, but lived together for 44 years and did everything recommended in terms of regular exercise and healthy eating.  However, my husband developed a rare blood cancer that slowly progressed to acute myeloid leukemia, which didn't cause him pain, but left him with extremely low hemoglobin levels and short of breath.  Watching him deteriorate was the most painful experience in my life.

My husband told me to be happy, so I know that I need to honor that, but it's hard sometimes to see how that's possible.  I tried for months to socialize more and make new friends, but the conversations seem pretty hollow.  I know people aren't mean; they just don't understand grief because I didn't either until I was put in this situation.

I have found it helpful to intentionally remind myself each night about 3 things that I am grateful for that day.  Fortunately I am in good health and have also been able to remain very physically active.  However, now that I am 9 months into the loss, I can say that my grief is worse than in the beginning.   Yet I know for certain that I must allow myself to express my grief or it will manifest itself in unhealthy ways.

I wish you the best and send you strength to get through this painful process.  I'm confident that telling your story multiple times and having others hear it is important for you in this journey.

Thank you very much for that very thoughtful reply. Everything you have written rings entirely true. It is a horrible, horrible, thing which we we are all going through. At times, it seems impossible to bear - but we must keep going, in loving memory of those we have lost.

Your final comment about talking about what's happened is completely right - and, I guess, is partly why I use this forum.

Thanks again. I send you love, and my best wishes.

I can only agree with what everyone else has said here. I am almost 6 months in from losing my husband from bowel cancer and one week away from Christmas I have just realised how alone I am feeling right now. He was never one for Christmas your actual `grinch` and thought it was all a waste of time but we celebrated it anyway. I just feel like closing the door over the Christmas holiday and just hiding away. I will see my family at Christmas my son and his fiancee and my little granddaughter. My older sister will be staying with me through the holiday but this year I just think it will come and go and just feel like every other day has been since he passed. We did everything together and had each other's backs and supported one another. This year will also be a painful reminder of last year when his cancer began to take a grip of him and he was hospitalised two days after Christmas and had to stay in hospital over the new year holiday. He had to go back on chemotherapy because his cancer had returned after being in remission for 5 months after getting his tumour removed back in January 2022 when they said they had got it all. The chemotherapy he had to go back on eventually caused damage to his kidneys so needed to be withdrawn completely and after that he was more or less on borrowed time because there were no other routes they could go down. Like you all here I just hope time is a healer and things will get better going forwards. My best wishes to you all. 

xx

I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s a horrible disease. I lost my mum at the end of November. She had a grade 4 glioblastoma and was diagnosed in April the tumours were stable but my mum was deteriorating with her mobility and ended up bedbound she caught shingles and then developed an infection and sadly passed away. 

I still don’t feel like I have accepted she is no longer here it’s so strange. 

It was her birthday the folllwijg week after she passed and the funeral is this Friday. I am just trying to take each day as it comes to get through it all. I haven’t even thought about Christmas but I am going to try and put a face on and make it special for my little boy as that is what she would have wanted. It is so difficult though!

the  grief comes in waves and sometimes I am angry, sometimes i am sad. 

Sending hugs