My partner has been diagnosed with sarcoma of the lung and heart. Simply put I am not coping at all. She is my soul mate, and it took me so long in life to find her. The thought of losing her is so unbearable.
I’ve got good support from family and friends, but everything all still feels empty and lost. I’m kicking myself because I’ve had a bad feeling about the small symptoms she’s had for a while, from the tiredness, anxiety, racy heart, to the slight dull pain in her chest. She’s seen GPs in the past but they all put it down to stress at work. More recently when she had to be admitted to hospital and they found she was having heart failure our GPs had diagnosed asthma.
I’m angry. This could all have been found much, much earlier if our GPs had been actually interested in getting to the bottom of the problem. Instead I feel she was fobbed off successively with the easy option. My partner is a nurse who has always given her all in others interest. She’s the most beautiful person inside that I have ever known. She doesn’t deserve this.
I just don’t know how to cope. I literally live for her. We do everything together. It’s a cliche to say that people can read others thoughts, but we really do seem to have the same thoughts about something at the same time. Without her my life would just be an empty void and I don’t think I can face it without her.
Hi
So sorry to hear about your partner, my wife and I also met a bit later in life than many - in our case through the lonely hearts column in our local paper.
Sarcoma, as I am sure you know is quite a rare cancer and the symptoms are often small and easily missed. Most doctors will never see a single case in their entire life. My my wife sees a new GP and she says I have Leiomyosarcoma they look it up on wikipedia.
Like you I got to a point I could not cope and walked in to my local Maggie's, an our of mostly crying and a box of tissues and I realised something had to change in my life as I was breaking and that helped nobody. Some time off work to look after me really helped.
Later I did a living with less stress course. I learnt that I was living in a world where my wife was already dead and it stopped me appreciating our time together - oh here people sometimes talk of pre-grief. Once in a while there are bad things happen out of the blue, I learnt a technique of step back, take a few deep breaths and then back to the struggle.
I was fortunate enough to attend an aunt's funeral recently - one thing the celebrant said really rang true - grief is the price we pay for love. Would I give up one day, one minute of my time together with my wife if it meant I could avoid the pain I have gone through - well of course not.
I am really glad you shared this on here, do post again whenever of if you want to talk to someone the helpline is open and staff there would be very willing to listen and talk.
One thing my wife really hates is when someone says to her that she is brave - now she looks at them with a glare and says "when was I given a choice".
<<hugs>>
Steve
So sorry to hear your horrible news. Its so unfair when she has always been there for others, I really hope you get the help and support you deserve during this challenging time.
It's hard being the other half when one is going through cancer it hurts not being able to help, my Hubs is reluctant to take help and I'm becoming frustrated as he is really poorly, what was supposed to be the easy option having TAMIS procedure for bowel cancer he is unbelievably unwell lost weight collapsed a few times but won't let me call paramedics and becomes angry.i we were married at 17 yrs old 46 years ago .just don't know what to do...
Monday hug to everyone 
