Mixed Emotions.

Your posting really tugs at my heart strings Anna. I too am going through very similar experiences and emotions with my husband who also has terminal liver cancer. I have become very weary and low and can't face the future without him. However, your last sentence about the rainbow helped me and I too should try to cling on to the hope that one day I can feel the joy of life and the colours of the rainbow. Thank you for that.

Dear Hermitage 

I am glad that my sharing has helped in some small way. I am sorry to hear you are on this unwelcome journey. It is so hard on so many levels. Every day since his diagnosis has been overshadowed by ancer and that he is going to die. People say live for the moment and although I try ( and I like to think I am a positive person) we can not get away from the facts. For some it maybe easier, but Ady has been effected health wise every single day, whether that be nausea, pain, cord compression, loss of mobility or cognitive ability. How can you forget about it when every thing you do there isa constant physical reminder. I understand the weariness you are feeling. I too am scared of a future without him, but he is partly gone already. Limbo land is a hard place to be as you can’t move frward with your life but where you are now is not a good place to be either. It is just so hard so I am sending you a virtual hug and hear for you. I do believe that one day I will be happy again bu changed forever. I know that he will always be looking out for me. Anna. x  

Dear Olivetree

Yes, indeed, every day is overshadowed by the cancer and it is hard to think of anything much else. I wake up every morning wondering how I'm going to get through the day. My lovely husband is also partly gone as his short term memory has been severely affected; don't know if its the chemo causing it or the disease itself. I grieve for the man he was. He can't manage without me and I am terrified of becoming ill and unable to care for him. It must be the same for you too. 

As well as all the depression and anxiety, I seem to be overcome with a terrible inertia, finding it difficult to get on with gardening and housework tasks that I would normally do..I wish I could snap out of it and stop feeling so useless!

to can’t put into words the relief I just felt reading your post. I have been with my partner for 14 years I am struggling to come to terms with everything and each day feels like an emotional rollercoaster, im terrified of how I will cope supporting him through all this and dealing with my own feelings of loss even though the worst hasn’t actually happened yet but we know it will eventually xx please stay strong and cling to that rainbow  Anna you undoubtedly love your husband to his bones x

We had a primary liver cancer diagnosis out of the blue last February when my husband was fit and fat, so it was unreal. But as the year has passed and chemo didnt work he has declined slowly, losing 75 lbs in all so far. I thought that he would carry on for a long time but this week he has deteriorated horribly and simply doesn't want to eat now.  We have been together and soul mates for a very long time, but I think he is dying now.  But with Covid he is getting very little attention from medics because there is "nothing more they can do".

Like you I find myself wishing it was all over because Im finding it hard to cope, he is not the person he was when healthy - he cannot accept death and doesn't talk to me at all, shutting himself away in front of a TV or sleeping, and so I certainly dont want things as they are to never end.  I realise that life is very precious for the person living it, so I will just have to be patient and let nature take its course and try to find a way to manage both terrible heartache to see a strong man laid so low,  as well as frustration from caretaking fatigue. 

I feel it selfish to admit that I both desire and fear and end to this crazy world of cancer. 

I feel the same as you all. I just want it to end, but don’t want him gone. But Tom has already left. In the past week the deterioration has been dramatic. Slurred speech , confused, crying, shouting, extreme fatigue. Then today I found him walking up and down the road outside our house naked and crying. He too is obese from steroids. I totally understand and your posts have made me feel less guilty . I hate him sometimes and other times when he is lucid and funny, it’s a joy. But almost a cruel glimpse of the man he was

This whole pre- grief we are going through is a real thing and is so difficult. In a way we are lucky as we get to say the things we want and prepare, but I am guessing we can never truly prepare. Snd big love your way. Anna. x  

Hello Tomslove. I am so sorry to hear of the absolutely wretched time you are having. I think the times I feel great loathing for my husband is when I am absolutely exhausted from it all. Both mentally trying to process everything as well as physically. Sometimes I don’t want to fetch and carry, help him dress or carefully stand by watching that his shakey hands actually put his tablets safely in his mouth. I don’t want to sigh as I am looking through the shaggy rug for the dropped opiate tablets, fearful if I don’t find it my crawling granddaughter might. My husband got all the symptoms you say about when he was on the high dose of steroids and also when he came off them ( to quickly for him), so much so they thought he had a brain tumour. 

I hope you have a better weak and getting some support so you can have some time away from the responsibilities of it all. Anna. x  

Thinking of all of us this Christmas. My husband has now stopped eating, he was once 19 stones and he is now all bones. Some of you have worse stories than me for sure and steriods can have awful effects.

I imagine that carers can develop PTSD, on top of all the stress involved caring for the needs of someone with cancer.

I imagine that we all just need to take comfort that there are others going through what we are. I also have times I resent the fetching and carrying, I don't like eating on my own in the kitchen when there is someone wasting away in the next room.  All of our feelings are absolutely acceptable, no one gave us a degree in managing a loved one with cancer.

All I can say is be thankful that it isnt you or me in their position right now, and try to do something nice for yourself.

Thank you all for sharing

We are going thru the same email, although immunotherapy seems to be a magic wand at the moment and hubby's stage 4 lc at bay. 

However this last few days of being totally alone over Xmas,  seeing kids on face time only and him being so weary is taking its toll. This could be his last Xmas. 35 years and this is how ill remember it, watching him do jigsaw and short walks only? 

Praying that he will be with us in 365 days time and we will all be vaccinated , can hug each otherm laugh Loudly in the same room, just be Merry rather thankntjis humbug feeling I have nowX