In November last year, my beautiful wife. Angie, had a full hysterectomy. We were informed that there had been a cancer on the ovary, which was removed during the surgery. She was recovering well but by the end of January she was having pain and bloating. She was also finding that she was becoming less tolerant to more foods, but she put it down to IBS. She was also starting to be violently sick, up to 6 times a day. Numerous visits to A&E only resulted in anti sickness pills that never actually worked. She was brought back to hospital where she was diagnosed with a mass on the duodenum. She was given a bypass, and sent home with instructions to eat 5 small meals a day, and slowly build up from there. When that didn’t work, she was brought back into hospital for further investigation. Eventually we had an appointment with a specialist that broke the news that Angie would not be able to have radiotherapy, and was too sick for Chemotherapy. I asked what the life expectancy was, and was stunned to learn that with Chemotherapy, it would be ‘months, but very few’, and without, it would be merely weeks. Two weeks later, she died. It was peaceful, painless and I was there with her when she died. We had 29 years together, and we were inseparable. In recent days, I have spoken at length to several people as my emotions are from one extreme to the other, and on the worst, just wanting to dehydrate and slip away to join my wife. The talking did me good, and even though I had a bad episode earlier in the week, I came through it without wanting to end my own life. Whether I am moving into another phase of grief, I don't know. I do sometimes feel like a small child that's been left with the babysitter whilst mum goes shopping. It suddenly washes over me that she's not here, and the emptiness that I work so hard to distract myself from, comes flooding back. I can't say that I am looking forward to my birthday, Angie's birthday ( which would be two weeks later) or Christmas this year. I have no family close by, and most of my real friends live too far away now.
