Cancer Survivors Network - still in shock - Comments

This Sureal feeling

Janj13 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:16:33 -0400

It has now been nearly 3 weeks simce my husband died of Pancreatic cancer and I stll think that he will walk through the door, thats hes gone away fishing or working away. Somedays I cannot accept that he has died and even this week when ive had to sort through all his pensions and paperwork, I have to change all the services into my name it still hasnt sunk in. Yet my doctor rang yesterday to see how I was and I just cryed the whole time talking to her. I dont understand how im supposed to feel. I lost my mother, father and brother and cant remember feeling like this. I had to sort my mothers affairs out and what I felt then is totally different to now.

Each night I write to Mike in my notebook telling him how my day has been and the things that have happened, I tell him how much I miss and love him, that has helped me I think. I started this when he became ill and have carried it on after he died. I KNOW that mike has gone from me, he died in my arms so why can I not accept this. Is this shock. When will the whole impact actually hit me. I know there is no time scale to the stages of grieving and it could hit me at anytime, I have yet to sort out his clothes and other things, will reality hit me then?

I hear ya

LookingForAnAnswer — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:25:44 -0400

Well, I don't know if this helps, but my husband died in April 2008
and I was soooo surprised at how long I was in shock. I kept saying to myself how surprised I was at how long that surreal feeling lasted. And that one year later
I was still in shock and still saying out loud when I
was alone, "I just can't believe it."

This is one and a half years later, and for the first time I said to a friend this week that I noticed I haven't thought about it in a couple of days. Nothing. I was busy with a problem with a group I volunteer with. The women were complaining a lot and I got into saying how I didn't want the stress of it. Then I realized for two days I'd been thinking almost completely of how to get myself out of volunteering. lol And that's when it hit me - wow I have only thought of how to get away from these women!!! lol

And that made me realize, ok for ME, it took a year and a half to come out of the shock. But it definitely did happen. Now I feel a weird distancing. But I am not longer denying to myself that it possibly could have happened. And I say it more easily now. He died. There, see? Lol

But it took a long time it felt like to get to that point. So no worries on how odd it all feels, still. I hear it takes ABOUT five years for basic healing. So cut yourself a break.

I found it helps to admit to myself IT HURTS.

And will hurt for a while. But it's a part of life. I started thinking lately about alllll the people who have lived before us!! And life's starting to make more sense to me now.

We are like players on a stage, after all! It's sort of like we all have turns.

It's helped me to let go. We are all here, for a while.

Whatever you feel, just acknowledge it to yourself. The odd feelings go, and it starts feeling more normal. I used to ask how long it would take and no one told me. It would have helped to hear someone say they started feeling less in shock and year and a half later. Oh, and btw, my mother died right before that. So it was a double whammy. I didn't feel ease of shock after her death, because my husband got cancer two months later. So for me that just folded right into the other news and her death took a back seat to his. The pain from his death was MUCH greater.

Okay, well hang in there. It helps to realize, this is LIFE. It's how it's designed. And we all experience it. Just at different times in life. You'll be ok.

You will

soccerfreaks — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:44:16 -0400

You will. There are apparently stages of grief, and you are in the midst of the second one. You do not have to suffer them all, of course.

And grief, as clinical as I am making it sound, is not so clinical when it is you, I know.

I would suggest that you consider this: the tears you now shed in grief will be tears of happiness eventually, believe it or not, the tears of loss replaced by tears brought on by joyous memories.

It will happen. Dad would want it that way, would he not?

Best wishes to you and your family (and family to come :)).

Take care,

Joe

still in shock

christylou — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:54:24 -0400

I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer almost 5 months ago. I was extremely angry at everyone around me for a couple of months. Now I am just sad. I can get thru most days without thinking about it too much bc I have a 2 year old and I am 9 months pregnant. But then when I get into bed at night, I feel the shock radiate thru me. I just can not believe that he is gone. I don't think I will get to the point where I am not in shock.