It will be a year tomorrow that Ian received his stage 4 diagnosis and a year to live. In fact he only had seven weeks……
He seemed fit and well but had a strange feeling in his stomach. At the beginning of the week he had two blood tests. The GP referred him to the hospital for tests on the third day. At the end of the next day our world and life together was shattered. It was that fast.
To me it seems like yesterday as each day is still so vivid and I can recall every detail. I can picture us having a coffee in between tests and Ian saying that they think he might have gallstones. If only ……
But to those around me, it’s as if none of what happened is important now and that I should have moved on. To what I ask myself! We were together for over forty years and so where can all those feelings and memories be expected to go!
I’m staying with my son and family and he won’t even talk about it. I just feel so alone with my grief and memories.
This site is the only place where I can really express my emotions, knowing that I won’t be judged or made to feel as if I should have got past this by now.
Ian’s diagnosis was the beginning of the end for both of us really. Ian lost his future and I am left just to exist until it’s my time too.
I’m sorry for sounding so sad but it’s how I am most of the time. I still feel quite numb as I just can’t accept what has happened and rarely look forward to anything with anticipation and excitement. I suppose I just feel dead inside really.
It does help me to feel less alone by writing this so thank you for reading it.
I couldn’t describe how I feel any better. Thank you. It was a year for me also on Sunday. I feel as if it happened yesterday. It still all feels so unreal but I know it is. The difficulty is how sudden it all was and how hard it is to process this and all the feelings it brings with it. We have lost control of things if in fact we ever have control and our security in life has gone. We are no longer carefree I have forgotten what that feeling is like and as you say nobody can understand unless they have gone through it. They don’t have the right to say we should move on. We will never move on just learn to live with our grief. Tears are an expression of our love which has nowhere to go x
Julie, I can tell you that I feel the same. Cancer took Guy’s life and destroyed mine. I feel like I’m in a waiting room. I find no joy in anything anymore. I’m 14 months in and the pain is still the same. I’m so sorry for your loss. ((Hugs))
Linda
I feel the same I keep going over in my head when it all changed for us was it the moment the gp sent him for an urgent scan his abdomen swelled overnight, they found a mass, I came straight out of work or was it the cramping pain two weeks before which is why he went to see the gp, at the time we thought it was a flare up if crohns never knowing how our lives were in the process of destruction, darkness and ultimately death for both of us because my life is over too or my life as I knew it, it’s all becoming very deep and profound I don’t want to talk about it to anyone they would never understand anyway and it’s very calming sitting with your own thoughts, reflecting again and again back on the rollercoaster over eight short weeks and then nothing, I have so much to tell him and so miss the comfort of his presence in my life, how can it be so ?
The first anniversary must be very hard to get through. I’m only 7 months along this horrible road. I think it’s only natural that you are going to relive the awful memories of that time. Mark had a long battle with cancer but it happened quickly at the end, he died 4 days after my daughters wedding. Everyone says he battled on for that as it had been postponed 3 times because of covid. I’m just pleased he managed to get there.
I also agree that people who haven’t been through it have no idea and do expect us to be ok and ‘moving on’
Sending a big hug to you xx
Take care
I remember the exact day that my life ended. I had just finished work on May 24th ( incidentally this date is also the anniversary of my mum’s death) My husband had been for what I thought was a routine scan as he felt he was not able to digest some goods properly. I didn’t even go with him that day because he was not ill and I knew he already suffered from reflux so thought it was something connected to that. On the way home he told me his scan results were in the glove compartment of the car. I couldn’t believe they would give him the scan results so quickly but he said a nurse had run after him as he was leaving the hospital. He couldn’t understand the terminology do he didn’t look worried. I read the scan results and it said suspected pancreatic
Andicarcinoma and showed a 1m tumour pressing on a blood vessel. My world collapsed in that instance.
My husband didn’t really show much reaction and we both sat in silence on the way home.
He was tanned and looked do well and had no signs of serious illness so we plodded on until 5th June when the diagnosis was confirmed. We both came home from the hospital feeling devastated.
We never talked about the prognosis because I really believed he would beat it but in 16 months he was dead. I keep going over the time in between. So much of it is a blur now. It all happened so quickly at the end. I couldn’t even see it coming but I knew it was because he refused to eat and was losing do much weight.
When he went into the hospice they said it was to build him up but within two weeks he was slipping fast. I still can’t believe it happened nearly 4 yrs later. I keep asking myself if he k new he was dying because we never talked about it.
It is just as sureal now as it was then. My life ended but I am still here.
Morning all reading all your messages is so sad I can not write all what happened in detail yet it was so sudden coming up to 12 months my husband was so fit and well it was a lovely sunny morning enjoyed a coffee together by the sea he went off to do some jobs for day that evening he was taken poorly to hospital seven weeks later he died I sit here alone and can not believe it like you all just want you all to know I feel the pain that you are going through it’s like know other people just don’t understand do they
Sending hugs hope the day will be manageable xx
Hi,
I totally understand what your saying, I feel the same way, It happened to me a few months ago and I’m devastated and so very alone now , everyone around you moves on but we don’t.
So sorry for your loss , mine is so huge a loss I have never felt so lost in my life we would have been married 50 years in march and together since I was 14 .
Strength is what we need , but very difficult to find at times .
Xx J
Oh strength seems on short supple right now trying to plod on did some excessive hoping it would help me get out this hole this morning as usual turn to this site as need some one to talk too it is hard going shame we all not close so we could have a coffee together never expected life to be like this for a long time guess I will go for a walk I know I will be in bits as soon as I go home and open my door sorry you don’t need all this take care xx
I understand totally, when I go out and return to an empty house it’s dreadfull, my dog is the only thing that’s keeping me going .
I feel sorry that I wake up some days . But take care
Xx J
Thank you to everyone on here. We all have such sad and heartbreaking stories to tell and I’d be so lost without this site and the support from others on here.
We are all ‘living’ a life we never expected, never wanted and often, can see no escape from.
I have smudge and if I didn’t I don’t think I would have ever gone out again. I don’t go far but I have this little life where I have started you on Monday and Friday morning and go out twice a day with smudge. I’m luck there is a park at the back and people are willing to stop and chat if you have a dog. Before I was invisible. It is so very hard and I miss my H with all my being x
On 25th July 2020, we were told than they were pretty certain that John had colon cancer. This diagnosis was confirmed in the September but they were certain it was operable and John wouldn’t even need a colostomy bag. I didn’t hear them when they said ‘as long as it hasn’t spread’. He had his operation on 22nd October 2020 and when he was opened up they discovered that it had spread to his stomach lining/wall and there was nothing they could do. They said that it was so advanced he’d have weeks to short months. They weren’t wrong - he died 2 1/2 months later on 3rd January 2021. My world as I knew it came to an end in just over just over 5 months. We’d been together for 24 years, married for 22. My only comfort was that at least I was able to be with John every day until he died.
Dear Trixie, I send condolences to you on the loss of Ian. I think unless you experience such bereavement it is impossible for anyone else to come near to understanding the devastation and emptiness this brings. My husband died almost two years ago. Life goes on for those around us but the void that becomes the horrible norm cannot be described. Yes its comforting to know there is a bereaved community that has empathy. Is there anyone outside of your circle you can talk to in confidence; any links to organisations when your husband was receiving care?