Hey everyone,
I have a brief run down of my experience on my profile, but my boyfriend was admitted only 2 days ago.
looking back, all the signs seem so clear, but we never suspected cancer. We would chalk each symptom up to something else, because he was otherwise healthy, and none of the medical professionals even mentioned it being a possibility.
Hes often a bit of a hypochondriac, and so when he said he had cancer after looking up his symptoms , I told him to not assume that - because the doctors said it was something else. I just didn’t want him to stress himself out.
I even got annoyed with him, because he was overworking himself and wasn’t eating , and at the same time he was actively deteriorating. I told him that if he didn’t follow the doctors advice, his chest infection would never get better. But he wasn’t deteriorating because of that, it was because his cancer was getting worse and worse, and I didn’t see the signs.
i told myself I was being paranoid when I did suspect cancer, when I saw his bruising. I knew it was also a side effect of being generally ill, and I assumed he was just very poorly, and so the bruising was worse. I wish I had just been a bit more paranoid. I can’t bear the thought of him getting sicker and sicker, and me nagging him to just eat some more.
he was actively dying in my care and I should’ve taken it more seriously and I can’t shake the guilt
because if I wasn’t there when he threw up, he may not be here anymore. Because I told him not to panic.
I don’t know how to make it up to him and I don’t know how to forgive myself for being so ignorant
Hi Slater
My name is Steve and my expereince of cancer is via my wife who has Leiomyosarcoma, so something of a different beast to your boyfriend.
Having read your profile it seems very much that your boyfriend was seeing medics through all of this and they did not work out was was happening so there does not seem to be a lot you could have done even if you had wanted to.
Something that helped me was Your feelings when someone has cancer, guilt is one of the quite common feelngs.
Often when you get a full diagnosis and then on to a treatment plan things can get easier. Janice had two lots of chemotherapy and the second managed to render her cancer stable, we have been living with that for over 10 years now and as she says the cancer does not bother her and she is not bothering it.
Do post on here whenever as someone is always listening.
<<hugs>>
Steve
