Hello from a nervous dad.

Hi Dkg144 and welcome to our group.

It’s a big deal to suddenly find out that your partner has cancer, so I’m sorry to read that you have both had this news, especially with a young family.

I hope you’ll find the group helpful as you go through this, and we will certainly do our best to support you both-you are welcome to ask any questions here, and you can then relay things back to your wife. It must be quite overwhelming to be dealing with this in another country. 

I appreciate that at the moment you’ve been blindsided by this, but when you have some more information you can share with us it will be easier to help you better. You mentioned you’ve been on websites and watched videos on the internet, but that will likely be a bit overwhelming, as there is a lot of information out there which is not necessarily accurate and may not be relevant to your wife’s situation, so I’d recommend staying off Google and sticking, for yourself anyway, with respected sites like Cancer Research UK, Macmillan and the NHS as you’ll know that the information there is accurate, up to date and relevant.

There are different treatments for cervical cancer, depending on the stage of the disease, and we have lots of different experience in the group we can share. There are different types of cervical cancer, although treatments are broadly the same but again this depends on the stage of the disease.

This a link here for a guide produced by Macmillan which explains cervical cancer-it’s a good place for you to start. I can direct you to more information but don’t want to overwhelm you straight away with too much.

Understanding Cervical Cancer

The type of information which would be very helpful for you to share with us when you can would be the stage and type of the cervical cancer, what investigations your wife has had to date, and what treatment is proposed. I appreciate that you are in Japan, but there are international guidelines for the treatment of this cancer so things should be broadly the same.

I know you’ll be stressed right now and sleep was difficult, but you need to look after yourself to in order to help our wife, so try to relax, share with us what you can and we can help with emotional support and the knowledge we have gained from our own experiences of dealing with this cancer. The more information you can give us, the more we can help with any questions. Have you got a good support network there with friends and maybe your wife’s family? That would really benefit you both.

Please post as much as you like, and ask any questions no matter how silly they may feel-most of us knew little about this disease until we experienced it ourselves, but we understand the fear and worry you will be going through right now, especially with a young family. 

I look forward to chatting with you again, and I’m glad you’ve joined us-you are very welcome to be here with us.

Sarah xx

Hi Dkg144,

I am really sorry what you are going through. I understand that it is difficult to process not only you but also your wife and unfortunately all you will need time to grief. 

in terms of the actually diagnosis the positive side is that this type of cancer in most of the cases is treatable and can be curable. In Uk for stages up to 2a usually is recommended a hysterectomy whilst for more advanced cases the gold standard treatment is chemo radiation with brachytherapy usually for 5-6 weeks.

i diagnosed with 2b stage and I had the chemo/radiation and brachytherapy regime. I cannot lie it was tough especially after the 3rd week and without my husband and family help I don’t know how I could manage it. The good thing is that you don’t loose your hair but you are feeling drained and very tired from the treatment. It was 5 cicplatin one every week and 28 external radiation treatment every day except weekends and following finishing the external radiation I had 3 brachytherapy treatments that I stayed in the hospital.  Thankfully I am post treatment for almost 5 years without significant side effects and I will be discharged from the hospital in6 months time!

As her husband I would propose to just be there and be able to practically help especially with the kids and the houses if it is needed. I remember that during my 3rd week I was so tired. I had my husband to drive me to and back from the hospital also I had my sister and mum to cook food and generally to help in the house I was literally not able to do anything except of laying in bed and sleep. Also post treatment it took me a couple of months just to regain my energy. For me it was a slow recovery mentally, emotionally and physically but at the end it all work out. 

just take a step each day and I really hope everything to go well with the treatment.