Just lost my husband to HCC

On April 26, my husband died at home. This was a man who was incredibly diligent about his health care - annual physicals, blood tests, colonoscopies, endoscopies, the works. He had hig blood pressure and AFIB, which were monitored and managed well by medication. We lived (although we didn't like it much) on a 5 acre "farm" in rural Tennessee, but he had specialists in the best hospitals near and in Nashville. He had no history of drinking or hepatitis, had no family history of cancer of any kind, did not smoke and was active. At the beginning of February, he went to the doctor because he said his abdomen felt bloated and he had some abdominal pain. On February 26, ten days before the birth of our first grandchild, he was diagnosed with primary liver cancer, but was told that although he was not a candidate for resection or transplant, he was definitely a candidate for an immunological clinical therapy trial that had had good results. On April 2, the oncologist said "never mind", that he wasn't a candidate for anything but palliative care. We got into the Mayo Clinic on April 5 for testing and a second opinion. We heard the worst. He spent a week with his new grandson in Arizona, we came home to Tennessee on April 18th and he died at home on the 26th.

The oncologists told us is was like someone never exposed to smoking getting lung cancer. They also told us they had no answer for why he got this, why nothing had ever been detected earlier, and that they had never seen anyone go from diagnosis to death so quickly.  It is as if he was hit by a truck or lightening. We were together for 40 years. He was 69 when he died.

I am having the worst possible time, of course. I can't believe he is gone. I am angry that no one saw something before it was too late. I have told my children that they cannot get wrapped up in that anger because it is too late, it won't bring dad back and it will tear them apart. I don't know where to begin. I have virtually no friends here in this backwoods rural area where all I hear is that "he went home to Jesus" or "he is in a better place"...no, folks, his better place was with me and his family. I don't know where to start assembling, let alone picking up, the pieces of my life without him. It has been nearly a month since I heard his voice, heard him laugh and gazed into his eyes. 

Thank you for letting me vent. I hope and pray that no one has to go through this so quickly, although for him, the speed was a blessing since I know he had no pain. For me, the pain is just beginning.