Gosh, life throws your curve balls sometimes.

Hello padjo59

Firstly I am very sorry to hear of your wife's passing after her lung cancer. I hope that you can take some comfort from being able to do all the things you could with her and were able to support her when she did die. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been. Please remember Macmillan is here when you need us.

I am sorry to hear of your possible myeloma and I hope that you soon have some answers about what is going on and what may happen next. It must bring it home as well after your experiences over the last couple of years. Feeling lonely at these times is to be expected. Do you have other family/friends around you? 

I hope that it has helped to say how you are feeling on here and people will indeed understand how you are feeling. if talking things through would help then please do give the Support Line a call. 

Please do let us know how you are getting on and if there is anything you need, then please do ask.

Jane

Well they have confirmed it's definitely myeloma and it's incurable and kills you in about 5 or 6 years on average. Chemo underway and stem cell transplant coming in December.

Main feelings are:

• It would be nice to have Caro here to say 'poor Paddy Jo' and look after me
• She would have been great at it
• But now she doesnt have to watch me die, which she would have hated.
• So in a way I get a good outcome. I was loved and she was there always for me, but she is spared the pain
• And whatever, we had 24 lovely years together which I could never ever forget or regret, whatever the circumstances 

Hello Padjo59

I am very sorry to hear of the loss of your wife and I know that you are taking  comfort from the fact that you had such a love and such an important anchor in your life that still, and will always, bring meaning and richness to you in your life.

I know that you will really feel the loss of this anchor now when you face your own tough roller coaster of a journey. Not every human being gets to experience this priceless love we have had with our deceased partners - we were the really lucky ones.

I wish you the very best of success with your stem cell transplant. Hopefully you will also draw on the strength of your wife's love, and your mutual strength as a romantic, loving couple that you had through her illness. That spirit and her strength will still be with you now.

As Jane said I hope you can keep in touch with us through this journey and please ask us for help. I pop on here less now but it is such a source of help.

Florence

Well, it is now four months on and tomorrow I go into hospital to have the stem-cell-transplant which the consultants are confident is the best way forward for the myeloma. 

I have been blogging and writing for my own benefit the whole time this last two and a half years since Caro got her first diagnosis. And I still feel very lucky in all of this, even though from one point of view it has been one hit after another. Not all of us find the love of our lives and share a third of our lives with such happiness. Not all of us fulfil that promise of "I want to spend the rest of my life with you" by holding her hand as she breathed her last. And even now, feeling confident in Cro's love, I know that she doesn't have to know about my illness and all the pain that would cause her. I know she would have been brilliant with it but she doesn't have to be. 

And I am not alone. I have loads of friends and family on my side. I have the knowledge that Caro would have been right by my side, so I do not feel abandoned, just 'unwillingly left'. And I feel loved. And I have even met a nice woman that I am cautiously building a relationship with. But I do not feel that she has any need to take any responsibility for how I feel in the treatment (as she was bold enough to take me on, knowing my diagnosis).

So, all in all, the last two and a half years has left me more aware, better-armed, and feeling hugely loved. If anyone wants the link to my blog, please message and I will send it. 

And to all of you bereaved carers, whether you are on the same road as me or not, remember you stuck it out, and showed your love in what you did. And that is exactly what being human is about. 

What a beautiful post!

Thank you for writing that