My first post on this forum. My husband has stage 4 lung cancer which until October he was very well despite the treatments he’d had not working for longer than a cycle. He’s 61 and was diagnosed 18 months ago, completely out of the blue. He had no symptoms but bent over one morning to pick something up and thought his back had gone. It turned out to be a broken vertebrae and from there the cancer was discovered to be from the lung but had spread to the liver and pelvis too.
Since October he has had a chest infection which then turned into pneumonia and a 21/2 week stay in hospital. As soon as he came out of hospital his team wanted him to start on a new chemo which he had and fortunately we were able to have Xmas together. Wednesday he woke up very breathless again and a temp so back to A&E to find he has another infection and covid. He struggled to keep his blood pressure up and things became very serious with conversations about whether they would resuscitate if needed and perhaps our daughter should come up to the hospital.
We stayed until 2am when he’d finally stabilised and we felt we could leave to get some sleep before going back. Thankfully things have stayed on an even keel and he’s being looked after in an isolation room on an oncology ward.
I’ve just dealt with whatever was happening at the time and trying to support my daughter as much as possible. I think Wednesday was such a shock to her that she’s scared to leave her dad or to go too far from the hospital as she’s constantly thinking they’ll call wanting us to get there urgently.
I am exhausted by everything yet it’s 5.30am and I can’t sleep. I don’t feel anything except some anxiety and my mind is spinning. I have no family nearby, my in laws are 120 miles away and no sign of coming down or giving any support at all so are dealing with this alone. Everyone says if I need anything just say or if I need to talk etc but what do you say?
If I do say how I feel or if I’m not feeling well myself I’m reminded of what my husband is dealing with and I end up feeling bad or selfish. I can’t be upset or angry at how things are because it isn’t happening to me yet I’m now doing everything. Until recently my husband was on top of his medication, knew the treatment he was having, was driving himself into central london to the hospital etc but that all falls to me.
On top of this I had breast cancer 3 years ago and was supposed to have reconstruction in April but I’ve had to come off the list because I need to support my husband through treatment. In April my dad passed away. So much has happened to us I’m in a constant state of alert as to what will happen next.
I want to do whatever I can to help my husband and support him but I guess at times I’m overwhelmed and I just needed to let that out.
