My husband died two months ago and I feel lost without him. It all started in February 2021 when he went to doctors about a pain in his shoulder. Our whole world changed in one sentence “you have terminal lung cancer”. We had no idea, up until then he hadn’t had any signs or symptoms whatsoever, and he certainly didn’t feel ill. Worse was to come when they also discovered he had cancer going towards his spine. He had radiotherapy which stopped cancer in his spine spreading. Was doing really well having immunotherapy which had halted growth of lung cancer. We began to have hope. It was not to be, in August he was taken to hospital with a massive blood clot in his lungs, then he caught pneumonia in the hospital. He could not fight it and died a week later. I cannot even put into words I
how I feel. We did everything together, we hated being apart. My friends have been lovely but they just don’t understand. I have had to go back to work but everyday is a struggle just to get out of bed and put one foot in front of another. Does this ever get any better, I cry everyday because I miss him so much. I always thought I was a strong independent woman, but I am just a shell of the person I once was and am a total mess.
First thing I can say is you are incredible.
Cancer is shit. I cannot say it’s gets easier but I know without talking to you , you were fantastic.
Nobody knows how to deal with death nit the love and trust you have built make it right.
I honestly believe the last last few minutes I spent with Nancy were the most beautiful of my life.
But I was lucky anytime you spend with your loved one is beautiful, feeding them, assuring them and loving them makes so much difference.
Enjoy every moment and take care
I’m sorry for your loss, I also lost my husband quickly to a fast growing aggressive cancer from one day having a pain in his abdomen to his death all within eight weeks, similar to yourself, it’s getting your head round the rollercoaster of events and loss of control and the final outcome and you stand alone thinking how could this be, how could he be dead, how did all this happen ? reeling from everything, I think I was exhausted initially and then in a daze of disbelief for weeks and now feel it’s all gone I am left with nothing, there is no meaning to my life without him by my side, where do I go from here but I can’t think so I do nothing and sit and wait but I don’t know what I’m waiting for but I’ll still sit and wait because something has to happen, I can’t think of going back to work and feel I want to stay near the house sifting through happy memories in my mind, I know I will never be the same again and slow pace is the way to go, be kind and gentle to yourself at such a vulnerable time, hugs to everyone xx
Dear Misty 2012
Your reaction to this catastrophic loss is so normal. How could you be any better? Of course it’s painful- just a measure of your love. If you didnt love then you wouldn’t feel so much. My story is a bit like yours. David fell over and hit his head on a Cornish stone wall resulting in a brain bleed after not being able to visit him he was moved from Cornwall back to Barnet which further damaged his health. Covid was acquired in hospital. This was a in last November. Not looking forward to the anniversary.
I’m thinking of you.Misty 2012.
Keep posting your updstes.
Bobmajor aka Tricia
Thank you all for replying to my post, I felt so alone but now I know there are others out there going through the same hell and misery that I am, and I wish you all the love and peace in the world. I just can’t make any sense out of what has happened, that there is no us any more, it’s just me, a 63 year old widow, I even hate that word. All I can hope for is better times to come, but thank you for caring.
Misty 2012, two months is such a very short time in the course of bereavement . It will take some time before you feel like mixing in social company and before you stop crying every day.
I’m now 11 months in and I feel much happier, though still cry at some point in the day. Of course life isn’t the same and never will be. I am hoping for better times.
Tricia
Hi misty just had to talk to you . You have been on a rollercoaster .ip and down and to fast this is not how you planned it .life is so cruel my mum was 63 when she lost my dad . You are still in great shock. I have lost my son 25 . 4 months he was gone a rare sarcoma .cancer in thigh .bones and lungs . It was like a wirlwind they gave him 12 months sam was the bravest boy he never cried he never moaned .he was our superhero . Like you im lost in shock and just want him here . I felt so alone but coming on this site we are not alone .take care talk anytime zoe
How are you today Misty ? The weekends can be challenging for us. I tend to watch a lot of rubbish tv at the weekend as a distraction, yet there’s nothing on that I like. This is 11 months on for me and i am beginning to come to terms with being alone but some of the time I feel resentful at the way David was treated and the way he died. We can’t turn the clock back. I usually have a cry to myself at some time during the day and I find it helps as I feel better afterwards.
Thinking if you.
Tricia
Thank you, I have had a terrible week. Got home from work on Monday to water all over kitchen floor, my electric water heater had sprung a leak. Brian was so good at all that sort of stuff, I just cried and phoned my sister and brother in law to help me. Then during week got terrible tonselitis and have to just stay in bed. All the time Brian was ill I knew I couldn’t get ill because I had to look after him, but since he has died I have had illness after illness. I just think my defences must be really down. I know I shouldn’t but I sometimes feel resentful when I look out the window and everyone’s going about their lives and I feel mine has just stopped. My friends have been good and so has my sister but I feel when it comes down to it, we are still alone and they have no real idea how we feel. Thank you for caring, I know I just have to grit my teeth and get through this.
Dear @Misty2012,
Your comment about being a strong independent woman struck a chord with me. I thought I was a strong independent man, willing and able to do anything that needed to be done. However, it’s only since my wife Nicki passed in July 2020 that I’ve come to realise that she was the entire source of my strength, my confidence and my determination. Without her I am nothing, merely a faded shadow of my former self.
Yes it is very difficult, I seemed to have lost all my confidence when my husband died. He was my rock and I realise now that I depended so much on him to always be there for me and it he was. I do feel totally lost without him and in a way I feel that I don’t really exist anymore, everything seems like I am wading through mud ,just to accomplish ordinary everyday things.
Both Misty and Alston it takes time to come to terms with a life alone after having a partnership wrenched in half by death. We are all finding our way and the first few months are the worst. I assure you things will get better as time goes on. I am retired but try to keep busy and involved however I feel when I’m on my own. I still can’t believe David had gone but I’m trying to make a good fist of my life.
Tricia
Bless you and everyone on your losses. My father passed away with lung cancer and eventual bone cancer too back in 2005. It all happened within 3 months. His anniversary of his passing is on October 26th, I don’t look forward to that day or week come to that. I think the firsts are the worst, first Christmas, wedding anniversary, birthday etc. Those days plan something, don’t be alone and get through it the way that you can cope with. Talk to your lovely husband as if he’s just in the next room, that helps me. Be kind to yourself, if you want to cry, cry; if you want scream, do it. My heart goes out to you all.
Thank you, Justme64, very wise and heart felt. Many friends and contacts are being made on here. I think we are both coming to terms with our losses and using coping strategy to go forward. That doesn’t mean we don’t suffer from the loss.
Tricia
I know exactly how you feel and what you’re going through. Your story is a virtual copy of mine. My wife,June, had exactly the same symptoms as your husband but hers was a large “lump” on her shoulder. It was put down as a strain by her doctor and even though the tablets given did not help we just believed it was a strain. Like your husband she showed no sighns of a more serious problem. Then one day she tried to get out of bed and her legs gave way, she phoned her son and he came up and was not happy and was sure something was wrong. I got a call from him later on saying to come to A&E as his mum was in there. That was when I got the news she had lung cancer and the reason she had fallen was the mass was pressing on her spine and they needed to get her to the Beatson Hospital in Glasgow ASAP to try get this mass reduced and off her spine. Unfortunately this didn’t work and the mass damaged her spine and she was paralysedfrom the waist down. Then the next bombshell was dropped because of the paralysis she couldn’t get chemo or radio therapy. Was never expalined why but can only assume that her being paralysied and if she had been sick she might have chocked on her own vomit. How we got through that I’ve no idea, June was down for about a day but just kind of dealt with it much better than I would have done. Though Keith, her son has told me she kept a lot hidden from me as she was trying to protect me, now I kind of wish she had told me how she felt but she knew me too well and wouldn’t put me through her fear. They did try something to see if she had a gene that could have helped but were told it was a very faint (less than 10%) chance, and Keith and I were told she didn’t have the gene so the cancer was terminal. Again how we got through that must just have been working on auto pilot as it was just a haze. Worse was couple of days later we had to sit with her whilst doctor told her it was terminal. Again she was down for a day or two them seemed to acceptthe fact and started preparing for her death. How she did that I’ll never know she was so much braver than me. In her last week she was getting weaker but never thought on the Monday she would be gone by the Friday. Your last statement is just how I felt. We seemed to be having a good time had had a great holiday up in Aberdeenshire and had made plans to go back later in the year and in the blink of an eye it was taken from us. As you say friends can help but unless they have gone through it they aren’t sure what to say, which is understandable.
Does it get any better? Is difficult it does take time, there is just no hard and fast rule of coping. As somebody put on this forum it doesn’t get better but you kind of learn to live with it, although there will always be that missing piece. It will be 4 years next month and that is such a dark day for me that don’t want to see anybody that day. I always find anniversaries are a struggle either wedding, birthday, Christmas etc.
Like you we did so much together and think there was only less than a week when we were apart. Thing found hard was if something happened you’d go “Oh I’ll need to tell June that” only to remember that you can’t, though in saying that I do still have conversations with her
Think at the start of the grieving process it is so hardand you do ever wonder if it’ll get better, it kind of does though there will always be that missing bit in your life.
I only within the last year found this forum, and it has helped though I’d say 95% of the time I’m in tears as you re-live what happend to your own partner, but it does help as all that are on here have gone through the same pain so can try give help and say what happened to them. It doesn’t remove the pain but it does help even just a wee bit.
You still have a road to travel but htis forum can help, even just to come on and say how you feel and what you’re going through.
We’re all in this together.
Ken
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. Our stories are indeed very similar. Even down to the part that my husband got out of bed one day and he had no feeling at all in his legs he fell back and crashed into wardrobe, unfortunately it is a mirrored one and the glass all smashed, luckily he was not hurt, this was about six months before he was even diagnosed, little did we know that it was probably due to tumour in his spine. At the moment I can only take life minute by minute. I really feel that I am not really myself anymore, I feel I am here in body but my spirit and who I once was is gone forever. I will never be me again, if that makes any sense. I just feel how could this of happened to us, it was not in the plan, we still had so much to see and do and life to live. I know I am being hypersensitive at the moment but a friend messaged me this morning and asked if I wanted any Christmas baubles, I know she meant well and I was rather curt with her and said I am not doing Christmas this year. I don’t know what I am doing in the next hour let alone Christmas. I know I shouldn’t but I get cross that everyone else’s life around me seems to be going on as usual and I am stuck on the day my husband died 16 August 2021. Thank you everyone on this forum because it does seem to be helping me greatly to read others thoughts and feelings and what they are going through and feel like I have a voice, I don’t have much family, only my sister and brother-in-law and while they have been a great help to me, they are also grieving as we lost our dad last year and Brian this year.
It is 10 weeks now since I lost my husband and initially I thought I was coping very well but I seem to have very dark days recently. My days are filled with thinking of him even though I try to keep busy. I tend to keep how bad I feel from my family as I don’t want them to worry and they have there own grief to deal with. I think we all see life going on around us and think where do we fit in now. I take encouragement from everyone when they say it will get better in time and how long it takes I suppose is up to every individual. We have to look out for ourselves also and I am very mindful of this as I know only to well grief can make you feel quite ill. Well I’m-going to go out now even though it’s raining. I feel better for writing this - take care everyone x
Hi. I was like that for 1st Christmas, wasn’t interested but only had brother and stepson to get for, so it was just gift vouchers. Last year was 1st year I really went for it with lights and decorations, it was if June was saying “come on get the decorations up and celebrate my life” .Think my biggest worry was if I normalized Christmas I’d be forgetting her but strangely she has been coming into my sleeping dreams more and more. This didn’t happen after she died and kind of get the feeling this was because she was paralysed(due to the lung cancer ) as well as having the terminal cancer. I now believe I was just blocking it all out. Just too hard to deal with and how she did I’ll never know. I’m not saying Christmas is good but my stepson and I can have a laugh and reminisce about his mum. It’s probably as “normal” as we’ll ever have now.
Ken
I think I will have to try and make an effort at Christmas, Brian loved Chrismas and he played a big part in it at church, he played the organ and piano and was in the Nativity as a Wiseman and sang in choir for carol service. I can’t really go to church much these days , as at the moment I can’t bear to see someone else playing organ for the Sunday service as that was his job. But I guess as time goes by I won’t feel so resentful. My first hurdle will be his birthday on 23 of this month, double whammy as it is also my dad’s birthday same day and he died last year. I have asked for day off work and will go to cemetery as I am not sure what else to do. It’s such a shame we thought we would have more time together especially as the doctor said Brian was going to have treatment for 3 years, we assumed we would have that time.
Misty this life seems so cruel right now there seems sadness everywhere .awful things happening. My cousin lost her husband suddenly it was awful she was same age as you everything to live for plans and dreams . I was looking after her we very close then wham my sam was diagnosed jan the 13. 28th said he was terminal 24 years old wheres the justice they gave him a year he lasted less than 4 months .this life .every day feels harder not better.he was such a layed back happy person .he would hate us to be so sad . I try its so hard i feel a wreck but it has to get better .like you misty im cross with the world sending you a big hug love zoe x