Hi all,
My partner has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. We are waiting for appointments for treatment but we do know its been there a while and he has some cancer in his bones.
As you can imagine it's stressful, but my problem is that I'm really angry with him at the moment. He has to urinate frequently and the doc told him to drink plenty of water and stay away from alcohol and caffeine. Last weekend he was really in pain with his bladder after a drink of wine and we agreed it was best not to drink any more at least for a while. However this week he's been sleeping on the couch so we can both get some sleep. And I found a bottle of spirit half drunk this morning. In the bathroom there are traces of blood in the toilet.
I'm feeling like I can't even look at him right now. I know that he's feeling helpless and doesn't know how to deal with his emotions but I can't communicate with him. He's shut off and not taking care of himself and I can only watch his self destructive behaviour.
My immediate response is to shut down too and that's dysfunctional it does no-one any good but I'm so bitter!
Any advice?
Hi Veganch33se
Sorry to hear about your husband and the impact this is having on you both, lack of sleep rapidly becomes a problem for anyone and sometimes people can turn to alcohol as something that can help that - even though clearly it causes many other problems.
I don't know if you have seen Looking after someone with cancer as there is quite a lot of stuff in there about how it feels to be in our role - and it is far from easy.
I ended up doing a living with less stress course and it really helped me. Learned to concentrate on the here and now - too easy to imagine a really black future that probably will never be that bad - if I get to survive to see it anyway. The conscious breathing exercises were great for when life decides to throw us a curveball too.
When I was dealing with another stress event my GP prescribed eco-therapy - he then explained about going for a walk, especially in nature and stopping and listening to the sounds of nature - and it helps me.
<<hugs>>
Steve
