YOU MIGHT BE A CARE GIVER IF...

If you are the only one left to take care of the cancer patient

This is a true story about only son abandoning his terminally ill father because he could not bare the thought of watching his dad suffer and how one person was forced to take on the harsh world of being the sole care giver to a man who has been diagnosed with incurable cancer

This story is also about spending time listening to a dying man’s conversations with the spirit world. It was the most ah inspiriting 2 weeks of my life. A time that I will forever remember and if I had not believed in heaven I sure do now. And after you read this story you will too.

And dealing with the aftermath.

What you should know about Hospice and the struggles with getting any type of help once the doctors tells you that there is nothing else they can do and for you to just go home and prepare yourself to die.

Find out what you should do before forking out thousands of dollars for treatments and how to avoiding the pitfalls.

Sure everyone knows someone who has died from cancer but that is not something you say to person who has been the care giver to a dying loved one. In fact it is an insult.

I will tell you that it is not easy watching a loved one suffer from the debilitating disease of cancer and battling the overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

It is all too common when a family member bails because the thought of watching their loved one die. It is too overwhelming and more then they can bear.

Cancer can take anyone hostage, the cancer patient and their entire family. If you are not prepare you could be just like the people in this story

Hello, my name is Roxanne and I would like to share with you my story for many reasons. So many people are not prepared for the havoc that cancer can cause.

It can tear up a family. It is very costly especially if one loses their job or out of work for 6 months like I was.

Most people are not aware that some people are weak and will bail at such time of need. With out understand this it will cause anger and resentment which breaks a family apart.

It is very important to understand this process, its very common for a person to be weak and not be able to handle such an ordeal. It took me a whole 6 months to understand why a son would abandon his own father. We are all humans with feelings

In fact I first named the story “A Son’s Betrayal. But I now realize that was not the case and there is a lot of healing taking place. This is the aftermath of cancer.

First I would like to tell you a true but sad story about a friend of mine. When his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer he was the only one out of 5 siblings who would step up and take care of her. It was so devastating to him that he decided to never get close to his own children so if he is ever to fall ill his children would not have to experience the hardship, the pain and anger he suffered.

My story falls along those lines. I was the only person left to step up and take care of a terminally ill loved one

When my common law husband of 18 years was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his only son who is 20 years old bailed. He packed his clothes and moved out of the house and left me to take care of his father. I had no idea what I was in for.

At first he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He immediately went in for surgery to remove that infected section of his colon followed by 6 months of chemo and radiation treatments

The treatments were so harsh on his body that it took him 6 months to become somewhat normal again. He came home looking like a red lobster with blisters on his feet

He did not have insurance but was very fortunate to be able to go overseas and have the surgery done at no cost. However, it cost him over $12,000 for his 6 chemo treatments.

Like most health insurance it does not cover out-patient treatments which is how chemo and radiation is administered therefore, all costs will be incurred by the cancer patient.

I wish that he would have had the cancer policy my mother had. It was a 50,000 lump sum which help with all the expenses.

I would like to add that medical treatment oversea is about 1/3 of the cost of the United States.

Cancer treatment has been rumored to cost as high as $6000 per treatment. It really depends on the type of cancer and what type of treatment your doctor prescribes.

Plus it is advisable to check with your insurance company since most cancer treatments are considered out-patient and or medication.

For more information check out the following websites

Chemotherapy Treamtment .ORG

CSN Cancer . ORG

8 months later my husband went back for a check up and was told that the cancer had spread to multiple parts of the body such as the lungs and brain. He was told that there is nothing else that they can do and for him to go home and get his affairs in order and prepare to die.

He was very upset to find this out since he did have other symptoms that pointed to cancer in these other areas but doctors only treat and diagnosed only one area at a time and if he was told that his lungs were full of cancer which is inoperable and a brain tumor , then things would have been different.

Instead of telling the truth, the doctors just take what money they can.

I will tell everyone to be prepared if you are ever diagnosed with cancer, have your doctor do a thorough check up. Have every part of your body check out, cancer will and does travel straight for the brain and other parts of the body..

Now my husband did not tell anyone that he was terminal and that his cancer had spread to other parts of the body. He thought he was doing us a favor. NOT

However, I did suspect that the cancer had spread because of curtain symptom that he was exhibiting. It is very important to do your research like I did. The internet was really my only friend at the time.

I found a site that was really helpful, this site gives the symptoms timeline and other important information. Go to www.brainhospice.com

Then one day it suddenly appeared that he had a stoke He was having trouble using the right side of his body; he was falling down and having problems with his speech along with short term memory loss

He could only speak a couple of words at a time. It was difficult for him to complete a full sentence. Plus he had short term memory loss. It was so bad that when he would call for me, he forget what he wanted by the time I got there. It was heart breaking to see him struggle with that.

The brain tumor would cause him to sometimes be child like.

Like one morning waking me up at 3:00 am because he had no concept of time, He wanted coffee and I told him that it was too early for that and he did not like that so he yelled no, no, no, no for one hour straight. From 3 am to 4 am.

It also appeared that he had broken his nose. But once I got a closer look at it I could see that over night a tumor popped up on his nose, neck and a spot on his groin area.

His cancer spread so fast that in just 4 months the tumor on the groin area grew to the size of a golf ball.

The tumors caused so much blood loss because of the constant bleeding that he was weak and unable to fight. Also it left such an odor of death in the air.

I now understand why cancer is such a killer It’s real hard to replenish blood cells when the tumor continues to bleed non-stop, it does not allow one the fighting chance.

The long months of taking care of him took it s toll on me, my nerves where so shot that I started to have a nervous break down. The stress caused my teeth to start falling out and my back was in such pain.

His seizers were so bad that I could hear when he would go into a seizer from the other side of the house, sometimes lasting up to 10 minutes or more.

As I mentioned earlier he did not tell us that the tumors moved to the brain and I was only preculating at this time what was going on but he had a seizure that lasted over 10 minutes and I had to call 911 to get him some help. He spent one night in ICU when the very next day he checked himself out of ICU.

Yes I had to go pick him up from ICU and bring him home, he wanted to die at home and who can blame him. But it was at that point when we did find out about his cancer spreading to other parts.

I am not sure what the doctor told him because he wanted to spare us the grief. But when he got home from the hospital his went into his closet and started taking out his suits. This was odd to me since he was a suit man. All his life he maintain a perfession appearance as he graduated with his PHD in Chemical Engineering.

I asked his what he was doing and he said that it was time to clear things out. He asked to get rid of these suits that he selected. So I did as he asked. I did know that when people know they are dieing they get thing in order.

Well needless to say, when I went into his closet to get a suit to take to the funeral home I was able to find one nice suit left in his closet. It was then I realized that he had made his choice.

Now back to the chore at hand, I had to help him get to the bathroom, sit down, get up and take him back to his chair or bed. At night I would be call upon at least 3 times a night. So I got smart and purchased 2 portable urinals for him to use.

It was not long and he was not able to help me help him. Both legs would just buckle so he just became like a wet noodle and bed ridden.

I tried to get hospice in here and the first words out of their mouth was, hospice is not free do you have insurance or Medicare. I was told that they would only come for 1 to 2 hours a day for the purpose of taking vitals and administering medications.

This is the state of Texas. I do believe that each state is different. But one does need to have insurance before hospice will come out. And you need to check into the hospice protocol in your own state.

I thought about the hospice at the free Ben Taub hospital in Houston, TX but the cancer patient has to be the one who agrees to being hospitalized and signs the paperwork and he was not will to do this since he wanted to live out his final days at home which is the case for most people who have been diagnosed with any terminal illness.

Soon his tongue and throat swelled to the point that he passed away from lack of oxygen and kidney failure.

I would like to tell you that I did get to witness him speaking to the spirit world. For two week we are sure that he was being prepared for the other side.

The first week he complained about the bright light. It was too bright for him. He wanted us to turn it off. But we explained that maybe that was heaven calling.

I could always tell when he was conversing with the spirit world, it was the only time he could complete a full sentence and he would be looking off into the distant and totally oblivious to anyone being in the room.

One day he asked me to go get the names of all the people that are in the house. It was only the two of us but he could see that the house was full of people.

Both his father and grandfather are deceased and one day he got very excited and said father and grandfather! After a few minutes of silence he started to tell them that he use to be able to travel all over but now his body does not allow him.

It was at that point that I realized its time but he did not think that he could do it because of his limited body.

We started the process of letting go and telling him that it is ok

Every night I would spend hours by his side or somewhere in the room to keep him company and listen to him. But one night stands out the most..

He suddenly got very excited and said “OH, THE DOORS ARE BURSTED WIDE OPEN”

He then asked the spirit “how far is it” then he asked “do you know the distance” He seemed to be a little upset, he wanted to go but I could tell he was not sure if he could make it.

So he suddenly turns his head to the right in my direction and he said “Roxanne! do you know how far it is” I told him that I did not know. But what he asked me next sent chills down my spine. He said to me “Will you go with me?”

What can I say, my first invitation into heaven.

I talked to his son about what happened. So the next day when he came to visit his dad he asked him if he saw God and his dad just laughed, which meant yes, then his son asked him what color was God. And his dad told him that GOD and HEAVEN are gold

He also told his son that he found a way for them to be together. He really never did elaborate what he meant by that. But he is sure they will be together.

But it was very clear that he did not think he could get to heaven with his limited body; keep in mind that this is a man with a brain tumor which at times appeared child like.

We explained that for him to be free he needs to leave his body behind. It was only two days later that he passed away.

Yes I have always believed in heaven but now I have a personal invitation and that will forever be etched into my mind.

Earlier I spoke about a website that gives great information about symptoms timeline and one of the symptoms is called the death rattle. This means they are just hours away from passing.

The death rattle occurs when the patient’s breathing becomes labored because of the mucus build up and swollen tongue or throat.

This is one of the most heart wrenching experiences. In his case it was so loud and it appears to be like a loud snore.

I do believe that he was gone at this point because there was no response; it was like he was asleep with his month wide open and his eyelids partially open.

Once the body passes away or the spirit leaves the body. The body will take about 8 or more hours to expire. The feet and arms start getting cold.

I called his son to explain that I believe his father is gone at least no breain activity and it’s just a matter of hours. I knew this because the day prior there was no response from him at all. I called to him and nothing but the sound of his labored breathing.

So he asked me to go in and tell him that his family (overseas family) loves him and I love him and please pray for him

So I went in and called his name and to my surprise he opened his eye wider that I had ever seen before and he looked right at me. I did as I was instructed, I told him that everyone loves him and that it ok to go.

He let out a little sigh then turns back and he was gone.

On April 12, 2012 we lost a very powerful and loving father who loved his son unconditionally.

Its was a very sad day, however knowing that he is in good hands does help with the heat ache.

Now I would like to say that all of the hardship and loss of income could have been avoided if he would have listened to me about getting the cancer policy. I could have had the help that was needed and would have saved my job.

I really felt like I was being held hostage during this time, I could not go far for over 6 months, my nerves were shot, resentment for his son set in. It literally tore the family apart.

We are now in the process of mending our relationship and healing the heart at the same time grieving for the loss of a beloved father.

But I can’t stress enough, GET A CANCER PLAN. Could you use 50,000 if you or a loved are diagnosed with cancer?

Here is a great website is www.icoptions.com