I am in hell

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John_32
John_32 Member Posts: 71
edited March 2014 in Caregivers #1
I feel like I am in an impossible situation and need any advice I can find.

My wife currently has brain cancer and was treated with whole brain radiation therapy shortly after being diagnosed three months ago. For financial reasons we are not presently living together. We both lost our jobs after we returned from our honeymoon in the fall of 2008 and the economy collapsed. Because she was Canadian and I was American, and we were both now unemployed, neither of us met the income requirements to immigrate to the other's country, so we have only been able to visit each other back and forth. In addition to losing our jobs, my wife was soon thereafter diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer, and because I was unemployed I was able to travel to Canada for an extended period to be with her through surgeries and radiation. Likewise, when the cancer spread to her brain in April, I came immediately to Canada to be with her for her appointments and radiation and recovery. However, the powerful steroids she was put on to prevent further brain swelling caused her to act like a lunatic and she became so rageful to the point of throwing me out of the apartment. I used what little money I had to get a hotel for several days, but she still under the psychological hold of the drugs and could not be calm or rational, leaving me with no choice but to return to the US. Finally, after she was weaned off the drug, she was capable of communicating with me again over the phone and expressed regret over what happened. Her family has been taking care of her ever since I was forced to leave, and they are elderly immigrants from the phillipines who do not seem to have done any research online or anywhere about the psychological effects of brain cancer and steroids, so their feeling is that I was treating her so badly that she became extremely upset and we had a fight and that I basically abandoned her. That is not what happened at all, my wife was really just going crazy from the drugs and/or the brain tumors.

In the meantime, we have both run out of all money, and she is living with her parents in Canada, and I am living with my parents in the US--we both lost our apartments on top of everything else. I want very much to be by her side as she goes through this, and she would like this also, but I have no money, and she is living with her parents who now have a fierce unfounded hatred for me. I am scared she does not have long to live--the doctors said as much when I was with her in April--which is all the more reason every minute that we are still apart is unbearable to me. And I really don't know what I can possibly do. I have suggested finding a cheap hotel up there if only for a few days so we can see each other, but she is so weak she cannot even walk out of her parents house. This is the most insidious hell anyone can imagine.

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  • GregStahl
    GregStahl Member Posts: 188
    #2
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    Wow
    Not sure what to tell you. I know this must be the hardest thing anyone has had to deal with.
    All I can say is talk to her parents and try to get things patched up so you can at least stay with them when you visit. They have to have seen the side affects of the drug and know what is going on.
  • ms.sunshine
    ms.sunshine Member Posts: 707 Member
    #3
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    GregStahl said:

    Wow
    Not sure what to tell you. I know this must be the hardest thing anyone has had to deal with.
    All I can say is talk to her parents and try to get things patched up so you can at least stay with them when you visit. They have to have seen the side affects of the drug and know what is going on.

    The only thing to do is talk
    The only thing to do is talk to her family and try to explain to them what you have explained to us. Maybe writing a letter if they won't listen to you. I wish you all the best. Hope you get to be with your wife.
  • Dotsmom
    Dotsmom Member Posts: 11
    #4
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    ms.sunshine said:

    The only thing to do is talk
    The only thing to do is talk to her family and try to explain to them what you have explained to us. Maybe writing a letter if they won't listen to you. I wish you all the best. Hope you get to be with your wife.

    What about speaking to her
    What about speaking to her Dr., having him/her explain to your in-laws about the confusion/rage your wife has been experiencing. Perhaps this will help them to understand that it is not your relationship that is the problem and that it would do her good to be with you at this time.
    Wishing you and your wife peace,
  • John_32
    John_32 Member Posts: 71
    #5
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    Dotsmom said:

    What about speaking to her
    What about speaking to her Dr., having him/her explain to your in-laws about the confusion/rage your wife has been experiencing. Perhaps this will help them to understand that it is not your relationship that is the problem and that it would do her good to be with you at this time.
    Wishing you and your wife peace,

    I have tried calling her
    I have tried calling her parents to speak with them but they always just hang up on me before I can speak or they pretend they can't hear me or that they don't know who I am--that is the level of hatred I am dealing with. The doctors are aloof and I cannot rely on them to be my advocate, they are rightly only concerned with the patient, I guess, and moreover I felt they were very negligent by not even mentioning all these horrible side effects when they first prescribed the steroids. I have decided to write a letter to her parents, calmly explaining what was actually affecting my wife, and hope that they will try to understand and be more charitable in their treatment of me and will allow me to see her. Brain cancer is truly awful because it not only attacks a person's body, but also their mind, as do the treatments for it.
  • LivinginNH
    LivinginNH Member Posts: 1,456 Member
    #6
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    John_32 said:

    I have tried calling her
    I have tried calling her parents to speak with them but they always just hang up on me before I can speak or they pretend they can't hear me or that they don't know who I am--that is the level of hatred I am dealing with. The doctors are aloof and I cannot rely on them to be my advocate, they are rightly only concerned with the patient, I guess, and moreover I felt they were very negligent by not even mentioning all these horrible side effects when they first prescribed the steroids. I have decided to write a letter to her parents, calmly explaining what was actually affecting my wife, and hope that they will try to understand and be more charitable in their treatment of me and will allow me to see her. Brain cancer is truly awful because it not only attacks a person's body, but also their mind, as do the treatments for it.

    Hi John,
    I would also

    Hi John,

    I would also include an acutal medical description in your letter of the effects of brain cancer from MD Anderson Center or another reputable center. This would at least give your statements to them some real credibility. I simply can't imagine the emotional pain that you are experiencing, so I pray that her parents will listen to you so that you may be by her side. - Take care, be strong. - Cynthia
  • colleen B
    colleen B Member Posts: 25
    #7
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    Where in Canada?
    Where is she in Canada? I have an apartment up there...and I am in the US..Is it in Ontario?
  • John_32
    John_32 Member Posts: 71
    #8
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    colleen B said:

    Where in Canada?
    Where is she in Canada? I have an apartment up there...and I am in the US..Is it in Ontario?

    Thank you for the
    Thank you for the suggestion--I made sure to include some print-outs from medical sites describing the psychotic side effects of dexamethasone/decadron, so her parents don't merely have to take my word for it. They should receive the letter by Monday I guess, though I am not sure if they will respond. In the meantime, I am increasingly concerned, as I have not had even an email from my wife for an entire week, and I just discovered an oblique message on my teenage step-daughter's Twitter page about hating hospitals, which leads me to fear that my wife's condition has deteriorated and she was taken to the hospital, as she had no appointments scheduled. And, yes, you read correctly, her daughter's Twitter page is my only source of any information about her condition at this point. Her family of course never answers my phone calls, but perhaps once they receive my letter and have a better understanding that I was in no way ever harming their daughter, but quite the opposite, they will then take my calls. Also, yes, it is Ontario, Toronto to be exact. If they are still not responding to me by Monday, when they should have received my letter, and I have no other information, I will start calling hospitals in Toronto to see if she is admitted. I am her husband and I must have rights in this matter.

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