My wife of 35 years died on the 20-07-2019 after nearly 3 years of suffering with ovarian cancer she was so very brave having to go to London 3 hour drive every week for chemo and other treatment then she was told the chemo was no longer working and the London consultant told her that her only chance was stem cell transfusion so after some thought and discussion my wife decided she wanted to live that much she was willing to do it to cut a long story short she had the transfusion ended up in intensive care twice had to spend 2 months in Hammersmith hospital in London and came out crippled could no longer walk also ended up stone deaf she finally discharged herself from there and got a bed in Lincoln county hospital stayed there for 6 weeks then got discharged home where I had already got hospital bed and all the equipment needed same day she came home London rang her and told her over the phone that she had 1 week to 1 month to live I am currently on the sick as I have been looking after my wife at home I knew 3 days before Nicky died I knew her death would not be long then on the Saturday Nicky waited until I got up I told her I loved her and held her hand as I did every morning went to make a cuppa sat down held her hand and she died she was the most brave lady I know and I am so proud of the way she conducted herself throughout her illness Ime in bits atm and when my 2 girls come round they ask if ime ok by ime now getting fed up lying to them x
Why are you lying to your girls? With what you’ve dealt with and seen you know by now women are the stronger sex. They also show and share emotions much more freely than us guys do, talking to them and letting the tears flow is exactly what you need.
I lost my partner of more than 21 years on April 1st, she was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus on February 13th. Immediately prior to the diagnosis she had just worked three twelve and a half hour night shifts as a nurse. She had been complaining of being unwell since December of last year, saw three doctors who failed to recognise a serious problem. Her own family practitioner, the American version of a GP, didn’t even examine her and signed her fit for work, which resulted in her working two more weekends in spite of a twenty pound weight loss and an inability to eat.
I made her attend the ER even though she really didn’t want to. It was then they diagnosed cancer which began in the oesophagus and had spread to her liver and lungs. We expected at least a couple more years after the diagnosis but she developed sepsis from her feeding tube. She beat it once but it returned after I gave consent for surgery to insert a new one. She went downhill rapidly after and I knew in my heart she didn’t have long even though I continued to pray for a miracle.
She fought so hard to stay alive, it broke my heart when she lost her battle. She spent thirty years of her life caring for the sick, even when she was deathly ill herself, and barely made it to her 61st birthday.
I cried multiple times every day immediately after and was grateful for the emotional support from anyone who would listen. Don’t be afraid to let it out because you’re a man. Women are the stronger sex, tell your girls how you feel, cry with them, you’ll feel better for it.
Thank you Carl for your reply and kind words I have cried with my girls loads of times over the last ten days and they know that ime in bits they keep telling me just how proud they are of me the way I looked after their mother so although when they ask if ime ok I say ime good mabe ime just lying to myself mabe cuz ime their dad my wife’s husband it was my job to look after and protect them I do have outside support when I need it Marie curie have been fantastic for the last few month at the end of the day we are all on this page for the same reason to me you can be the hardest man in the world or the smallest wimp but cancer is a leveler or any disease that brings death when it hit home with my wife that she only had a few weeks to live all she would say was that the girls will look after you you will look after them and all look after the grandchildren ( sorry for rambling )
Hi Simo3925
I’ve got three daughters and one son. I’m fairly sure that they knew how I really was whatever I said to them. In two weeks it will be a year since Carolyn died. I had known she was dying for four years, and she had outlived her prognosis by a considerable time. The kids all knew everything right from the first signs. All the kids were very close to their mother as she’d been there for them 24/7 all their lives. I’d never been quite as engaged and I’d always blamed that on work and how stressful that was. Fortunately the kids don’t appear to have held that against me and they still do a good job of looking out for me, although I’m conscious of the relationship changing over time, probably as I’ve become less needy.
I can identify with how you feel after such a long period of living under a cloud and watching your wife deteriorate, and I’ve reached a point where I can divert myself away from thinking too much about that. I’m not sure time is a healer, and I’m not sure I want to be completely healed, but time has made a difference for me. You can’t go round grief, only through it. It’s a process and, in time, you’ll be able to look back and see that little changes have taken place.
I challenged myself to do different things, to push myself when it would be easier to sit and be introspective. It’s early days for you, much too early for anything other that just surviving. Look after yourself and just hang on in there is all its about for now.
Thank you for your very kind and comforting words they say that time is a great healer and yes it is still very early for me x
Dear Yorkshire Lad
Well said
It’s a daily challenge but as time goes on it’s doing different things that help even if we don’t want to
It’s a year yesterday since Mark died
It’s been the toughest year of my life but I have lived to tell the tale like you have
Sending much love to you and everyone else on this post
Romy xxx
PS How did your trip to Wales go in the camper van ?
I didn’t see any posts by you on it but then again I don’t come on here as much as I did in the beginning xxx
Firstly
May I say how much our experiences have in common. Although the details are different I had the same sort of things happen.
Three years later I expect to be getting over it a little, which in some ways I am, but I cannot say that when the pain returns it is any easier. That being true I am able to cope with it in a different way.
I won’t tell all of my story here as your grief is even more raw than mine but suffice it to say our experiences had similarities at certain points.
For different reasons I was unable to communicate with my wife as would have been helpful st the end and my focus was upon a promise that she wouldn’t die in hospital and by spending time elsewhere frequently trying to get her home, she died there on the morning I went to collect her.
I don’t know of your current situation but I am still in my house after three years and every day, encounter items, trigger memories and curse myself for my rotten memory and my loss of her enormous personality and memory for everything.
I have lots that could go on about but one thing that I found was that people are kind but don’t understand. They think that they do and try to help. They are always inviting me out but never .come to me. Despite my little dog, the house is too empty.
I have improved that position by throwing myself into charity work. I now understand why people do these things.
Through various peculiar coincidences I now spend most weekends in testing men for possible prostate cancer and with a friend we have built up a bank of 18 volunteer nurses and tested a thousand men in the last year.
Do I suggest that you do what I have done? No. But, find something that makes you important again something that gives you value.
Mine was 48 years of my then 69, that’s a long time to remember and I could not celebrate my 70 th birthday through guilt however I can at last have a good laugh at a silly programme or enjoy sharing our silly past moments with people that I bump into.
Please don’t let your wife’s death colour the way in which you see the future. You can’t replace her but you can try to stop other families suffering in the same way.
Use who she was to help you to have permission to enjoy life. Bit by bit it gets bertter.
Roger