Any Wife's Opinion Appreciated

hpat

The past year has been a journey of ups and downs unlike any other in life. My husband is battling stomach cancer stage IV. At this point in about 4 weeks he is going to have a surgery that is the turning point of therapy. Chemo has knocked it down enough that he can have the surgery but whether it will be palative or much better is not going to be known until the surgery. For the last year we have battled this, I went to school for x-ray, graduated, took my registry (waiting for those results), had two new grandbabies born, our son is getting married in 2 1/2 weeks, I worked full time and take care of all the household. Whew, I feel exhausted sometimes thinking about it. My husband has spent his days battling this disease and since the reoccurance, has no energy to do anything else. I feel guilty sometimes because I wish I could find something for him to do that he would enjoy and wouldn't exhaust him. Prior to his illness we were very active, we were gone several days a week with friends and riding our motorcycle. We both were active at work and had a wonderful personal (private) life after 32 years of marriage. Now he does nothing but veg all day and I work or do something here at home. I get so frustrated because I feel so lopsided on my life. I need more but don't want it without my husband. I feel so less like a woman these days and am very frustrated. He has no desire to be even close any more. I pray if all goes well some of his desire to live to the fullest returns, because right now we have no quality of life at all. I feel guilty and selfish for wanting more and knowing he can't or has no desire. Has anyone else ever gone through this and how do you get past the frustration and still care about the man you fell in love with. I just want that man back. Any suggestions?????

CanadaSue

HI,

I am going down the same path as you, married 31 years. My husband was dx'd in Jan 06 with Colon Cancer, 2 major surgeries, and a illostomy later, I am just very thankful that he is still alive. I work full time, also looked after the household, and as we live in Canada the shoveling of snow and more snow. No, we are no longer as close as I would like because of issues he has regarding the illostomy. At first he was the same as your husband, no energy - no get up and go, but slowly that is changing and we are getting back to normal (whatever that is). We now go out and do the things we enjoyed before this all came about, he even took part in the "Relay for Live" with us this year, something he could not do a year ago. I watched him get sicker with every chemo treatment, and wished I could take his place many times, he managed to complete 9 of 12 treatments, and is currently NED.
There were a few things that helped me keep it together, our family, friends, and this website,
with out all three I am sure I would not have been able to keep going sometimes. My friends made sure I got out of the house with them once a week, and I found that getting out for a few hours helped me stay grounded. Is there a support group or someone you can talk to? I found it hard to talk to those around me about what I was feeling, and I was lucky enough to find a few on here going thru the same thing and I believe we all helped each other thru the hard times. If you like you can e-mail thru this site.
Take care!

Hugs,

Sue

fizbobunny

I don't have any advice, but am in the same boat. I'm 28 years old and my husband was diagnosed with stomach cancer one month after our son was born. The son is our first child. Since then it has been very hard. He had a gastrectomy where they removed 80% of his stomach. Now he is going through chemo treatments, had his first last week. I don't know what to do or how to help him. He is not taking proper care of himself and we already had to drive him to the infusion center for a bag of fluids earlier this week. We are facing a long hard road ahead and he may even become sterile from the chemo and radiation. Homelife sucks. I work full time and commute 45 minutes to work. We have a 3 1/2 month old son I have to take care of and I just don't have it in me to watch so closely after my husband. We have been together for 11 years this September, but have only been married for 2. If you find any place for answers, please let me know. I'm getting to the end of my rope.

stressed

Remember - he still loves you! he won't remember most of this. Unfortunately (atleast in my case) , you won't get your husband back. I have a husband, but he's not the same man I married. I still love him, but I want MY husband - I don't want to train another (HA!HA!) He is exhausted, you'll never know what he's totally thinking or feeling and you never will even if you were in his shoes - you're not him. Good luck and look at the positive - at one point during my husband's treatments he looked like George Clooney and Bruce Willis - that was fun. Good luck!

wal2

stressed said:

Remember - he still loves you! he won't remember most of this. Unfortunately (atleast in my case) , you won't get your husband back. I have a husband, but he's not the same man I married. I still love him, but I want MY husband - I don't want to train another (HA!HA!) He is exhausted, you'll never know what he's totally thinking or feeling and you never will even if you were in his shoes - you're not him. Good luck and look at the positive - at one point during my husband's treatments he looked like George Clooney and Bruce Willis - that was fun. Good luck!

Wel, I am not a wife, but I will post a message anyway. I am a husband taking care of my 56 year old wife in what has so far been a 19 year battle with cancer. She was just diagnosed with her 4th recurrence, this time a progression to the facial nerve trunk leading to the brain, so it does not look good at all. I believe they will do gamma knife radiation, but all the writeups say it is "salvage treatment" or "only palliative", meaning that it can help the almost constant severe pain -- maybe even to the point that her heavy doses of Oxycontin and Demerol; can mask the pain. As caretaker, it is hell seeing her pain, it is tiring taking care of everything by myself, it is lonely watching other couples enjoying life....etc etc etc. But, on the positive side we were told 19 years ago that she had 5 years or less. So we always seek out the hope in each situation, while underneath it all we fear the truth. But look what "hope" and "faith" have done so far !!. I am a strong person, but this latest progression to the nerve stem has me scared and angry. I hope to meet some people in this chat room to just help me cope with my fatigue so I can keep on helping her to the end. Anybody out there?

sandyjg

wal2 said:

Wel, I am not a wife, but I will post a message anyway. I am a husband taking care of my 56 year old wife in what has so far been a 19 year battle with cancer. She was just diagnosed with her 4th recurrence, this time a progression to the facial nerve trunk leading to the brain, so it does not look good at all. I believe they will do gamma knife radiation, but all the writeups say it is "salvage treatment" or "only palliative", meaning that it can help the almost constant severe pain -- maybe even to the point that her heavy doses of Oxycontin and Demerol; can mask the pain. As caretaker, it is hell seeing her pain, it is tiring taking care of everything by myself, it is lonely watching other couples enjoying life....etc etc etc. But, on the positive side we were told 19 years ago that she had 5 years or less. So we always seek out the hope in each situation, while underneath it all we fear the truth. But look what "hope" and "faith" have done so far !!. I am a strong person, but this latest progression to the nerve stem has me scared and angry. I hope to meet some people in this chat room to just help me cope with my fatigue so I can keep on helping her to the end. Anybody out there?

You were able to express so many of the feelings that I am struggling with. My journey has been much shorter than yours. My husband and I were married Nov 2004, he was dx with stage 4 colon cancer July 2005 so our honeymoon was short. He has done amazing well for most of his treatment, has been on chemo almost nonstop since initial surgery. The past 6 months have been tough. I work full time, am 48 years old, he is 55. He is now anemic from the cancer treatments, so weak he can barely get out of bed. I serve all his meals to him in bed. He has a cat scan this week, hopefully all is OK, he has liver mets that we maintain through chemo, they don't shrink but we have kept them from increasing. I feel so helpless watching my strong husband wither away to nothing. I too am so lonely and worry all the time. I am not being very helpful giving advise on how to cope with fatigue as I can't sleep and cry whenever I am alone. When you figure it out, pass it on to me. My heart goes out to you, w hat a long journey you have had. maybe they will figure out how to treat this new problem of my husbands and things can go back to how they were a few months ago, then we golfed all the time and traveled, when he had bad days, we just laid low. Enough late night rambling. God bless you and your wife.