feeing bad about the way I feel

BHatson

I feel really confused about the way i am feeling. I know there are a lot people who had a lot worse outcome than ours. In the end of November, right before Thanksgiving my husband went to have a small lesion that was possibly cancer removed from his kidney. The it all fell apart. The Dr came out and told me that while intubating him they found as huge mass in his throat, they called and ENT and to protect his airway they had tom do a trachestomy. I had to sign thast paper, I felt as if my life was falling apart, I was alone at the hospital. I was so scared, I lost my dad 15 years earlier to throat cancer. There was less then 6 months between diagnosis and death. I was lucky enough that my best friend left work to come and be with me. Three long hours later I got to see him. He looked awful, machines hooked everywhere and that thing in his throat. I will try to cut this short, I learned the cares wct. then right before Christmas he had to mass removed, they figured it was stage 4 cancer of the larangex. I would never hear that voice I heard say I do, or had found so comforting for 20 years again. Well he had the largenex removed and we were lucky it had not spread, no radiation or chemo needed. Fast forward to today. I look at my husband and sometimes thing why did my daddy have to die, what did Mike do that allowed him to live? I feel so guilty about these feelings. I am doing all of his cares, we have no visiting nurses. I have my own medical issues. I feel isolated and I am afraid to share it because so many people would love to have our ending.

SamsWife

feeling bad about the way i feel
Aww - don't feel bad about the way you feel - you can't help the way you feel. You lost your dad that you love very much and you've been through a scary situation with your husband - try not to add more stress on yourself than you're already experiencing - to try to cope with these kinds of questions that arise, i sort of keep a mental list and joke about all of the things that I am going to take up with God when I see him again! Definitely on that list is why do people have to suffer so much sometimes! I know there are answers in scripture to this question but that doesn't make the suffering any easier!

Take care and be good to yourself!

CherylMike

Do Not Feel Bad
My husband lost his battle to head and neck cancer on 10-31-09. He was diagnosed in Sept. 2007. (By the time he was diagnosed the cancer had mets to his the lymph nodes under his arm). You are right that I would love to have your ending, but I am not in anyway "offended" by your post! I vividly remember helping Mike through those 2 years and it was hard. Our lives were profoundly changed. The radiation and chemo took months of sleepless nights and hospital stays, daily/hourly medications needed to be tracked and keeping them down via feeding tube or mouth was a challange, finding foods - eventually just liquids - that could be swallowed was a task as he had no salavary glands after radiation. . . The hardest thing was watching someone you love suffer and really not be able to do much to help. I miss Mike terribly, but am so happy to hear from people that have survived. Please keep posting here and know that you are not alone. This site is for sharing and I am glad that you are doing just that. Take care and God bless ~Cheryl

grandmafay

No Guilt
Please don't feel bad about your thoughts and feelings. They are your feelings and you have a right to have them. I lost my husband to colon cancer in Oct., 2009. I love hearing survival stories. That tells me that good things are happening out there. The more times we can beat cancer the better. I do think many advances have been made in the last 15 years. People are surviving and living longer. That's a good thing. We can celebrate the survivors and still wish others had also survived. Why one and not the other is a question many have. You are not alone in that. Fay

AnnaLeigh

Waves of feelings
Feeling isolated is such a profound and deeply lonely feeling but there are many caring people within this site who understand your confusion and your reluctance to express your true feelings. I really don't think anything you could say would shock the members here or give them a reason to criticize something you feel deep inside.

After my husband's cancer diagnosis, I can truly say I have felt so many emotions that I didn't even know existed. And worse than that, the feelings and emotions were sometimes piled on top of each other and had to peeled away like an onion to even determine where to begin. But one thing emerged that helped me sort through it all.

Our feelings will be like waves in the ocean. Some will be small and some will wash over you so big and hard it will seem like you are drowning. The easiest course is to let the waves come and don't fight them. Imagine a boat being rocked in the ocean. The boat will surely capsize if it goes against the waves. It is very powerful that you have identified and named the feelings of being scared, confused and feeling like your life is falling apart. Now you know how that feels and the next time one of these waves comes at you, you may even chuckle a little and say, "Hey, I know what this is. It's _______". And the feeling will pass just as surely as the waves in the ocean move onto shore and dissipate.

Three rules of hard times -
(1) Name and identify your feelings
(2) Don't repress your feelings or you will act out in harmful ways
(3) Don't act out in harmful ways - to yourself or anyone else

Keep using this safe arena to express those things which might seem unthinkable. You will find the needed support and encouragement from compassionate friends.