I am still having problems coming to terms with losing my wife Judith to cancer,this evil disease takes so many people of all ages.It was last September 2.15pm on Monday 27th that my world ended.I have struggled with life ever since.Had counselling,many calls to Samaritans when it got so bad for me.This site has been a life saver for me,I have so many friends on here now.We support each other when things turn bad. Grief is like a torture,it never leaves you alone for very long.It attacks you when you least expect it. Michael x
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I can only say I understand the age group, in so much as my Jax was only 55. Three days before she died.
I’m lost as I’m sure you must be! We’ve looked after our autistic son for 28 years and we thought he would need to have a good supported living situation, which we were happy with by the time he was 30. Then we’d planned to have a weekend here and week away when we were able.
Now that’s all gone. I can never go without her, We thought we’d have another 20yrs min together.
I love my son more than I can say, but I now have to sort supported living quicker than expected because I’m not capable of looking after him long term on my own.
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Hi Andrew
I lost my beautiful husband to bladder cancer on 17th September 2022, he was 51 years young. I know exactly how you are feeling we were so in love & did everything together. Chris was diagnosed with bladder cancer on 9th November 2020, totally unexpected. We had so much hope & thought once his bladder was removed on 22nd April 2021 all would be ok, how wrong we were. On 3rd August 2021 he rang me crying from a hospital bed to tell me his cancer had spread to his lungs & lymph nodes. Life was never the same after this & he quickly deteriorated. Chris was the most selfless person I’ve ever met he was more bothered about me than himself. I’ve since found out the additional drug he was placed on for his diabetes has also caused bladder cancer & death in other patients. I was robbed & basically my life ended as Chris took his last breath. How do you ever recover from losing the love of your life? To make it worse we worked together in the same department in the NHS, the same NHS I believe failed him. My pain from losing Chris makes me so angry, why him when we were so happy. I like many others just exist now & seeing other couples hurts me too. I can’t say life gets better as I’m 10 months in & wake up sobbing uncontrollably.
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Hi Judith, everything you say resonates with me. Nobody knows how utterly terrible loosing you life partner is, until it happens to them.
My husband Stuart, of nearly 40 years passed away on 13th June, he was only diagnosed on 8th May.
His death was completey avoidable, and I too feel let down by the NHS and VERY angry.
Stuart worked 12 hour shifts for over 40 years and never claimed a benefit in his life. He had only been retired for 5 months. We had such plans for the future, now they have all disintegrated.
I received a letter today from The Governance and Quality Facilitator, informing me that his death is going to be investigated. I have spent all day crying.
Sorry that I’m not helping you at all, but I’m sure you already know that there are no easy answers to what we are going through.
Take Care and sending you hugs
Ann xxx
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Dear Judith, my wife was a Judith a beautiful lady who was struck down by bladder cancer ,it was at stage 4 when she was told,it needed a 9 hour operation but still did not save her,she had weeks of chemo and so much pain and suffering.7 weeks in hospital and 4 days in a hospice and she was gone,I too watched my wife draw her last breath and I too died that day.Judith passed away at 2.15pm on Monday 27th September 2021.My life since then has been hell on earth,grief has no bounds. Love to you Michael x
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Alison’s journey with this awful disease started in October 19, she had blood in her urine, a culture of her urine showed infection so it was treated as a UTI with antibiotics and it cleared up. In March 2020 she had the same agin but it wouldn’t clear up so she had an ultrasound where they found a mass in her bladder. If only a scan had been done in October '19 we may not be where we are now. This is the issue with bladder cancer in women though, it does initially look like a UTI and is generally discovered later.
It had already been determined that the bladder would have to be removed, but she first received some chemo to arrest development and to eradicate any rogue cells that had escaped the bladder. Whilst receiving the chemo, the cancer grew in her bladder so the treatment was terminated as it wasn’t working and they moved on with the plan to remover the bladder,
She had an RC with a Mitrofanoff in a 8.5 hour operation in September 2020 and they rated the cancer as T3N1M0, she was then on quarterly scans and she was all clear until the 3rd scan where they found it had spread. At this point she received immunotherapy, after 3 cycles she had a further scan and found that it wasn’t working and there were even more sites.
Options were now getting limited, one hope was to try a sequence the caner to use targeted treatment, but a biopsy didn’t yield enough tissue to be processed so she received more chemo. In jan 21, after 3 cycles of treatment it looked like it was working (the SUV had reduced significantly), after a further 3 cycles and another scan it was found that it was no longer working and had spread even further,
In April, Alison had symptoms that looked like gastroenteritis, but it wouldn’t clear up so she was admitted to hospital. It was then found that the cancer had spread to her brain. She passed at away peacefully at home at 17:48 on the 23rd May.
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@Andrew7 So much of your Alison journey matches my Sharon’s (initial diagnosis 2019, depafture May this year - and your journey matches mine. Sharon was diagnosed stage 4 pancreatic an liver cancer in July 19 with a prognosis of 6 weeks to 3 months; I stopped working that day (own business) and like you seem to have become an expert to save Sharon doing so - and to follow every lead, every opportunity with chemos such as Folfirinox, Gemcitabine Abraxane, Onivyde and all the major anti-biotics for infection along with hald a dozen pain killers and anaesthetics.
I thought I’d done everything despite knowing logically it would end badly - but the psychiatrist highlighted that in spite of all that, I feel huge guilt that I couldn’t save her. I know logically that it’s not my fault, but I’ve always been in control in the past, so can’t accept I failed and it is heartbreaking.
Judith it’s like you are telling my Mandys story for me , exact same disease .
Bladder removal at such a staging comes with massive risk of spreading , we were told but it had already spread in Mandys case , RC was mainly for symptom control as the bladder was making her life hell all day .
It hate bladder cancer it’s utterly brutal if it’s T3/T4 aggressive.
My heart goes out to you as I’m in exactly the same boat , she was everything to me and so selfless throughout. I’m going to miss her every day I’m alive living this life I didn’t and don’t want but is here .
It’s shit.
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Hi this my story also,my lovely Judith passed away with stage 4 bladder cancer,it was horrendous watching what happened to her.Several operations,chemo for weeks but it had spread and she could not fight it.After 7 weeks in the cancer ward having huge amounts of pain relief ie the strongest they could give her and I stayed with her all through this. Then they said they could not do anymore and she was taken to a hospice where she passed away 4 days later and my life my world ended.Cancer is shit. Michael x
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