Does anyone need to talk and just vent? I am here.

cabbee

grandmafay said:

Hi Again
We got Moose on a trip to Montana so the name seemed fitting. We knew then that my husband's time was limited. Some thought we were crazy to add another dog to the mix. We already had an aging basset hound. Somehow I just knew it was the right thing. My husband loved labs and he and Moose had a lot of "guy time" as my husband called there times sitting together. Our basset hound died the week before my husband. What a blessing Moose has been! We also have a cat. He thinks he is in charge as well. It is amazing how much comfort animals bring to our lives. Hope your appointment goes well. Fay

Husband giving up
Well,we saw the Oncologist ,he was straight forward that this is 3b,will need radiation and chemo,and some times seeds are spread that cannot be picked up on scan,but they will try to do the best they can. This morning my husband announced he is not going to do any more-I am so angry and sad,I don't know what to do anymore,just cry.

grandmafay

khoward said:

Venting!!
My soulmate, my husband was diagnosed 1/22/2008 with stage IV colon cancer-spread to liver and lungs. He is 58. At 50 he got his colonostomy and was told come back in 10 years. His parents (still alive and kicking at 88) never had cancer, he never smoked, didn't drink, worked out everyday and ate healthy so wasn't considered high risk. In December of 07 he noticed that his side would hurt after jogging a mile or so. Went to doc and that's when they found it. Chemo isn't working anymore and now he is under hospice care. I have never had any friends-we spent all our time together, went everywhere together and we met working together. We have never felt comfortable when the other wasn't around. I have some family but they have their own problems. My husbands family is a mess. Nobody know what to say and neither do I. I am finding it very hard to watch him die. He had such dreams. We have 2 young grandchildren and his dream was to take them hiking the grand canyon, his favorite place. I promised him that I would do it. He wanted to do good things for people and that is what he did and still tries to do. We are religious and attend church at least 3x a week (Roger can't go anymore) but I just have a question that I haven't the nerve to ask our Pastor, why does God want to cause a good man so much pain and grief before he takes him home? Roger know there is a better place for him so he is begging God to take him but so far His answer is no, why?

Understand
I can understand where you are coming from. My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer on our 36th anniversary. He was 57. He had had two colonoscopies - one three years earlier and one just months before the one that found his cancer. We were both retired and had many plans. As our pastor said, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him what your plans are." He also said that being mad at God was a sure sign of faith. The first few days after the diagnosis the phrase "We're not going to grow old together," kept running through my head. My husband chose to fight to buy time and made it for a little over 6 years. What a blessing those six years were! Luckily, I belong to a church where questions are encouraged. A book both my husband and I found helpful was When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Plus, we often asked our church family to support us with prayer. During the hardest times, we felt those prayers. Since Doug's death, the support from family, friends, and our church family has been wonderful. I still hurt and cry regularly and that's ok. Grieving and surviving is hard work. I take it a day, hour, or minute at a time. It is hard to watch a loved one die. When my husband got to the point where he couldn't get out of bed, I prayed for a quick and peaceful death. I told him it was ok to go, that I loved him and that I would be alright. Our sons and friends promised him that they would watch over me. Those were the hardest days of my life. If you can't talk to your pastor find someone else to talk to. Hospice has chaplains and counselors. Please find the support you need. Come here often and talk to the many of us who have stood in shoes very much like yours. My prayers are with you. Fay

grandmafay

cabbee said:

Husband giving up
Well,we saw the Oncologist ,he was straight forward that this is 3b,will need radiation and chemo,and some times seeds are spread that cannot be picked up on scan,but they will try to do the best they can. This morning my husband announced he is not going to do any more-I am so angry and sad,I don't know what to do anymore,just cry.

Hang In There
I am so sorry that you are going through this. Give your husband some time to process what the oncologist said. He may rethink his decision. I always told my husband that it was his body and his decision. He chose to fight until the very end. There were days, though, when he talked about giving up. Usually those were days when he hadn't really taken time to think or when he had other things going on in his life. I think his knowing that I would accept whatever his choice was, helped him fight on. He knew that when he had had enough that he could quit. We talked a lot and cried a lot together. Just keep the lines of communication open, encourage him to explain why he wants to give up. My guess is that he is sick and tired of being sick and tired. Understandable in our heads, but not in our hearts. My husband often expressed that he didn't want to put me through any more. I let him know that that wasn't an excuse I would accept. I was strong enough to stay by his side as long as he wanted to fight. Take care, Fay

panks

cabbee said:

Angry

I am very angry at my husband and I know I should not be-He was recently diagnosed with lung cancer,yet to start treatment, and I know he is trying not to smoke so much , but when I see him with a cigarette it makes me crazy;I am scared and angry that I will be left behind and i cry almost every day-i am recently retired and most of my friends still work and have fallen out of touch with them,so right now pretty isolated;any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

Forgive him
I know what you are feeling. My husband got pheumonia in Dec 09. Five days later we were in ccu and he was on a ventilator fighting for his life. Found out he had stage 4 lung cancer with mets to the brain and kidney. It is so hard to accept that we will not be sitting on our front porch when we are 80 like we have always talked about.Anyway I am off track of why I was responding to you, Forgive him for getting cancer and forgive him when he smokes(as my husbands Dr. says what is it going to hurt the damage is already done) and forgive him for the mean things that he will say to you in the days to come. I think we have to forgive them for all this stuff because I really dont think they can forgive themselves for putting the one they love the most in the world through this horrible thing called cancer. Trying so hard to come to some kind of terms with all the new emotions, so I can make the rest of his life as peaceful as possible. I'm praying for all of us.
Tracy

AlexMother

My Son at 21 was diagnosed 1
My Son at 21 was diagnosed 1 yr ago with metastatic papillary carcinoma, thyroid based, The worst day of my life was being told my son had cancer. My heart broke it felt like I couldn't breath and then the ENT says this is the cancer to have if you have to have it. I HATE that saying regarding Thyroid cancer. It gives you a false sense of hope. ENT tells us surgery, Radical modified neck dissection, then RAI I-131 and he will be cured. Now 1 year later 2 Radical modified neck dissections, one RAI treatment that didn't work and still having cancer and being told there is no cure for my son we just need to get the desease under control. I need to say the 2nd surgery and this next treatment is being done at the UWMC in seatle (so much better tx) Iam so tired and frustrated I try to hold it together for my kids and my husband they are great but I have become the emotional punching bag for my son. I don't blame it but sometimes it just hurts my feelings. Then I feel guilty for thinking about myself in all this. I can not imagine what or how I would feel if it were me. but, as a mom I wish it were in me and not my son. All I want to do is fix his pain, cancer, and emotions. I find myself only living to research options in case this next RAI treatment doesn't work. Living for Dr. appointments and taking care of all my son needs. I would never change my being there and helping him but I know it is consumming me where I feel guilty if I have a good happy day...

tigrita

thanks for a place to vent
I am not a primary care giver, but I am a concerned daughter. My father is still capable of taking care of himself, retired, and he lives with my mother who does what she can for him. The problem is, he's been an angry, bitter, tyranical man his whole life (or at least my whole life that I can remember), and his health turning for the worse in the past 5 years has not helped any.

He has had several different health problems in the past 5 years, prior to that he was strong as an ox, very independent. The cancer was diagnosed last year, but he refuses treatment, and even refuses any investigation of new symptoms. He has some good reasons for refusing surgical treatment, he is a complicated case, though the doctors disagree with him and recomend that he have the surgery. Now there are new symptoms and an inconclusive CT that could indicate that the cancer has spread, or at the very least that there is a new health problem going on and he will not even have further tests to see what it is.

If anyone questions about his health he becomes hostile and shuts down. We have no choice but to watch him choose to do nothing about potentially curable health problems. He is making it damn hard to care about him, but somehow, we still care and beyond that, we feel guilty that there must be something we can do for him before it is too late. But it all comes down to his own attitude and choices. He doesn't believe in counseling, he won't talk to anyone; doctors, family, and certainly not a shrink about what is going on with him. I'm so distracted by worrying about him sitting at home with blood coming out of places it shouldn't, and him doing nothing about it.

I have no way to know if he has another year, or just another week, and sometimes I wish for the worst just to have it all over with, and let him live and die with his own stubborn chioce of denial. What kind of person does that make me? My mom is at her wit's end trying to convince him to get treatment, which makes her enemy #1 (which is how he's treated her anyway for most of their marriage). I don't know why she bothers, because if he gets better she'll have to deal with his tyranical attitude longer, but she wants him to recover in spite of that. I feel like it is so selfish of him to put the whole family through this, especially mom, not knowing what is happening to him (there are a few bad signs we know about and I'm sure a lot more he refuses talk about), and what to expect. But he's the one with cancer, we should respect him and let him do things his way, how can I be angry at someone who has cancer for being selfish, when they're the one physically suffering for it?

Barbara53

tigrita said:

thanks for a place to vent
I am not a primary care giver, but I am a concerned daughter. My father is still capable of taking care of himself, retired, and he lives with my mother who does what she can for him. The problem is, he's been an angry, bitter, tyranical man his whole life (or at least my whole life that I can remember), and his health turning for the worse in the past 5 years has not helped any.

He has had several different health problems in the past 5 years, prior to that he was strong as an ox, very independent. The cancer was diagnosed last year, but he refuses treatment, and even refuses any investigation of new symptoms. He has some good reasons for refusing surgical treatment, he is a complicated case, though the doctors disagree with him and recomend that he have the surgery. Now there are new symptoms and an inconclusive CT that could indicate that the cancer has spread, or at the very least that there is a new health problem going on and he will not even have further tests to see what it is.

If anyone questions about his health he becomes hostile and shuts down. We have no choice but to watch him choose to do nothing about potentially curable health problems. He is making it damn hard to care about him, but somehow, we still care and beyond that, we feel guilty that there must be something we can do for him before it is too late. But it all comes down to his own attitude and choices. He doesn't believe in counseling, he won't talk to anyone; doctors, family, and certainly not a shrink about what is going on with him. I'm so distracted by worrying about him sitting at home with blood coming out of places it shouldn't, and him doing nothing about it.

I have no way to know if he has another year, or just another week, and sometimes I wish for the worst just to have it all over with, and let him live and die with his own stubborn chioce of denial. What kind of person does that make me? My mom is at her wit's end trying to convince him to get treatment, which makes her enemy #1 (which is how he's treated her anyway for most of their marriage). I don't know why she bothers, because if he gets better she'll have to deal with his tyranical attitude longer, but she wants him to recover in spite of that. I feel like it is so selfish of him to put the whole family through this, especially mom, not knowing what is happening to him (there are a few bad signs we know about and I'm sure a lot more he refuses talk about), and what to expect. But he's the one with cancer, we should respect him and let him do things his way, how can I be angry at someone who has cancer for being selfish, when they're the one physically suffering for it?

bring in a caregiver?
A friend's grandfather spent his life controlling people, and he became so belligerent in his old age that he was hardly on speaking terms with other family members. But as his health failed, he really took to a private nurse – a local lady with some low level nursing experience who needed the money, and was sufficiently detached so that his rudeness didn’t get to her. Can your parents afford a caregiver? I recently interviewed a wonderful woman who is happy with $14/hour, with minimum 6 hour shifts. This would really help your mother (if only to deflect bad juju), because the biological end of things is likely to get worse before it gets better. Having someone experienced in the house would be the next best thing to hospice.

I’ve seen a lot in my last year as a caregiver, and I must say, I respect your father’s decision. If you think this is hard on you and your mother, imagine dragging it out for a year or two with treatments that are often worse than the disease. Don’t get me wrong – I also support every last cancer victim who chooses to fight – but choosing not to fight a battle you can’t win is good common sense.

Ask him to sign a release of information allowing you access to his oncology reports. Maybe if you promise never to bring it up again, he’ll sign it and you can get the information you need to make appropriate plans. Do plan on being there for your mother, no matter what. Sometimes dysfunctional relationships are the hardest ones to lose.

tigrita

Barbara53 said:

bring in a caregiver?
A friend's grandfather spent his life controlling people, and he became so belligerent in his old age that he was hardly on speaking terms with other family members. But as his health failed, he really took to a private nurse – a local lady with some low level nursing experience who needed the money, and was sufficiently detached so that his rudeness didn’t get to her. Can your parents afford a caregiver? I recently interviewed a wonderful woman who is happy with $14/hour, with minimum 6 hour shifts. This would really help your mother (if only to deflect bad juju), because the biological end of things is likely to get worse before it gets better. Having someone experienced in the house would be the next best thing to hospice.

I’ve seen a lot in my last year as a caregiver, and I must say, I respect your father’s decision. If you think this is hard on you and your mother, imagine dragging it out for a year or two with treatments that are often worse than the disease. Don’t get me wrong – I also support every last cancer victim who chooses to fight – but choosing not to fight a battle you can’t win is good common sense.

Ask him to sign a release of information allowing you access to his oncology reports. Maybe if you promise never to bring it up again, he’ll sign it and you can get the information you need to make appropriate plans. Do plan on being there for your mother, no matter what. Sometimes dysfunctional relationships are the hardest ones to lose.

Thank you for the reply and
Thank you for the reply and the good advice. We do have a long time family friend who is a nurse who helps out a lot, and he loves her, since she can always have a cheerful attitude and deal with just the superficial stuff rather than the nitty gritty, so he doesn't take anything out on her. It sounds like they want to run away together through fields of flowers the way he talks about her. I know she will be the one helping with his care as he deteriorates and that will be a load off everyone. I'm glad of their positive relationship for those reasons, but it also hurts that he can't be positive with anyone else who only want the best for him and have put up with his crap all his life and are still hanging in there with him despite it all.

I agree about supporting his decision to refuse treatment for the primary cancer. Especially when it was an informed decision. But now he refuses to check out other symptoms that may be minor treatable things that may be cured and allow him more time in his current fairly good quality of life; or they could kill him in weeks if not treated; or they could be metastasis, which is information that would be good to know; we just don't know. He's refusing tests to make informed decisions. That is not a decisoin, that is denial. I'd hate to see him die of a treatable lung condition when he could still have another year or more of good quality life, and I'll be racked with guilt if that happens, thinking there is something I could have said to convince him to go to the doctor. I'm working on letting go of that mentality, but it is really dificult.

I do want to be there for my mom. She is very stoic about the whole thing, all business, all black and white. She's very detatched emotionally, she has to be to have lived with him for all these years. She wants the best for everyone, but she doesn't show it with an emotional bent; just "this is what is right". All the conversations are about him, and she's always "just fine". I know it will affect her though, whether she shows it or not, and I will do what I can to be there for her. It is just hard to see how to do it, when she doesn't really respond to anything emotionally right now. I wish they'd both see a therapist, I sure as heck have been. But they don't put stock in that kind of thing. I guess all I can do is be available, just be there in whatever capacity they are willing and able to share with me.

Thank you again for the support.

solomeo2

Financial/medical support
Hello - I don't know where to begin. My sister called me in November to tell me she has been diagnosed with anal skin cancer. The cancer stage 3. She is having the last day of radiation today. She has been through 6 weeks of radiation&chemo.

My sister lives in NV and I live in CA. My sister is single, age 57 with no spouse/boyfriend for support. Her son (age 31)lives with her - he pretty much lives off of mom, only getting a job when mom threatens him. She went on leave from job(no pay)due to the severe pain and loss of bowel movement. No income no savings to help get through this.

I am frantic trying to figure out how she can get some financial support. I am financially broke due to the economy and live in a different state. I have no room to move her into my house. I cannot take care of her because I need to work to support myself. I am single with no financial support of a spouse. I suggested that she file for Social Security asap. She has not filed because she thought she would breeze through treatments then return to work (good as new).

There is a Cancer Society in her town. They have helped some and I am grateful. I talked with them in the very beginning... please call my sister and help her with paperwork,etc. They don't seem to advise/help her in the steps she needs to take to get financial aid.
They said they don't go into that area - only help with cancer related issues.

Can anyone out there tell me what she can do to get some financial aid so she can pay the rent and eat? Is there a program that has caregiver help? Is there a carehome she can move into for round the clock care?

Thanks for letting me vent... any suggestions? need help.

grandmafay

solomeo2 said:

Financial/medical support
Hello - I don't know where to begin. My sister called me in November to tell me she has been diagnosed with anal skin cancer. The cancer stage 3. She is having the last day of radiation today. She has been through 6 weeks of radiation&chemo.

My sister lives in NV and I live in CA. My sister is single, age 57 with no spouse/boyfriend for support. Her son (age 31)lives with her - he pretty much lives off of mom, only getting a job when mom threatens him. She went on leave from job(no pay)due to the severe pain and loss of bowel movement. No income no savings to help get through this.

I am frantic trying to figure out how she can get some financial support. I am financially broke due to the economy and live in a different state. I have no room to move her into my house. I cannot take care of her because I need to work to support myself. I am single with no financial support of a spouse. I suggested that she file for Social Security asap. She has not filed because she thought she would breeze through treatments then return to work (good as new).

There is a Cancer Society in her town. They have helped some and I am grateful. I talked with them in the very beginning... please call my sister and help her with paperwork,etc. They don't seem to advise/help her in the steps she needs to take to get financial aid.
They said they don't go into that area - only help with cancer related issues.

Can anyone out there tell me what she can do to get some financial aid so she can pay the rent and eat? Is there a program that has caregiver help? Is there a carehome she can move into for round the clock care?

Thanks for letting me vent... any suggestions? need help.

Social Security
I think social security is her best bet along with some tough love with her son. She might also check into social services. She might be eligible for food stamps, etc. Fay