I just found this forum and I really hope it helps. Recently the love of my life was hospitalized because of severe headaches and dizziness. An MRI confirmed 3 small masses on his brain. He had surgery and all the tumors were completely removed with no complications and he’s doing wonderful. Unfortunately the pathology came back that the tumors are the dreaded primary Glioblastoma Multiforme. Like an idiot I googled everything I could and scared myself to death. This cancer is aggressive and the tumors can come back. It has a poor prognosis. We’ve been together 3 years and I feel like I’ve searched for him my entire life and cancer is going to take him from me.
I lost my mom to ovarian cancer. I lost both grandfathers to cancer, I lost my best friend to cancer. I lost my dog to cancer and my other dog was just diagnosed with cancer. I AM FREAKING TIRED OF CANCER TAKING EVERYTHING AWAY FROM ME.
His neurosurgeon says he’s going to be fine and that everything was completely removed and he’ll be monitored extremely closely and carefully for any recurrence. He sees an oncologist tomorrow to discuss the next steps and if he’ll need any sort of radiation or chemo. I already suffer from severe panic attacks so I have been an absolute mess. I am panicking and crying off and on. Im constantly thinking “what if” thoughts that paralyze me with fear. I’m agoraphobic and my drivers license is expired so I haven’t been able to see him. He’s not comfortable driving yet even though the neurologist cleared him. I just miss him and I am automatically jumping to the worst case scenario and feel like I’m having anticipatory grief when he’s still very much alive! And I feel insane for believing Google over a neurologist lol What makes him so sure he’ll be ok?! He doesn’t seem like the type of doctor to sugar coat anything.
I‘m having a hard time coping because Chris is the one I go to when I’m scared. He’s the one who tells me everything is going to be ok. I feel like such an ass wanting him to tell me he’s not going to die! He’s only 46 and I’m 37. He’s supposed to be my happily ever after. He’s got a 10 year old son and 14 year old son who need him who he has full custody of. I’m so so scared to lose him.
Hi @sarahc83, welcome to the best club that we wish had no members. So sorry to read about how cancer has really invaded your life and I can easily see why you might think "why me"; we were discussing this a little while back and of course with cancer now affecting one in two people there are quite a number of stories like yours.
When my wife was eventually diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma it actually felt like something of a relief in that she had been through so much before that actually having a name for what she had - and eventually a treatment plan - it finally felt something was working.
I really struggled in the early days but managed to get a space on a living with less stress course. I came to realise that I was always doing the "what will I do when..." though of course many of the things I worried about never happened - you are so right to talk about the anticipatory grief. A useful skill I learnt on the course was conscious breathing - things will come out of the blue that we never expected and it can be very helpful to just take a minute "breathe" and say right what next. Transcendental mediation though just made me laugh.
Google can be used with care - but people do love to share horror stories so if is worth being careful to stick to fairly factual sites like Macmillan or cancer research uk..
I am sure he is on it already but if might be helpful to ask if his children's teachers know about the cancer; they can be very supportive and it is very helpful if they get a consistent message at school and at home.
<<hugs>>
Steve
