Sometimes I feel like a broken record. My husband has diarrhea. He’s in bed for 5 days straight. I have to do everything by myself. I don’t like this. blah, blah, blah
Rise. Repeat.
I’ve just stopped complaining because what good does it do? lol I doubt my friends want to hear my sob story about how my poor husband is on chemo (again) and I’m struggling with it (again) because he’s so tired (again) and I’m so lonely (again) and … you get the picture. Would you want to sit through that conversation every other week with me? No. No you wouldn’t. It sucks not having anything else to talk about. I hate how this consumes my mind and my conversations. Even when I tell myself, I’m not going to talk about cancer or chemo or any of that tonight, it just creeps into my mouth and the words come out. But I DREAD it. Going in for the infusion, seeing my husband walk around attached to a box pumping poison into his body every 48 seconds for 3 days straight. Getting the box disconnected, like he’s physically wired in, like an old school phone that needs to be disconnected when the service is changed. Seeing him in bed for days on end, leaving me on my own to do everything. All of is just sucks. It sucks for him, it sucks for me, it sucks for the kids, it sucks for our jobs, it sucks for everyone. And I KNOW it could suck A LOT worse! I mean, even with all of this, I feel like we still have it pretty good! With all the support we have and the fact that we’re still young-ish to bounce back from this complete financial blow, I mean, it could be WAAAAY worse. But in the thick of it, it just sucks.
So my husband went in for chemo yesterday, as planned, on Dec 26th. He did get the appointment, lol and asked me to go along with him. Almost immediately upon entering the chemo center, he started to feel sleepy. He hadn’t had ANY chemo yet, and he was already exhausted!? Ughhh This was not promising behavior. The infusion took way longer than it normally does, they needed to take another blood sample and we had to wait to get the results back before they could even begin any of his pre-meds. His ANC was right at 1,000, the minimum threshold for eligibility, so he qualified, but barely. He did gain a few pounds, up to 193, so that was good to see! He has started to feel the neuropothy pretty steadily now and it is starting to concern him as he can sort of feel tingliness in his, ahem, you know, manhood. So he wants to be sure to nip this problem in the bud before it becomes something that is permanent — tho I’m not sure there is anything we can do at this point to stop it. It’s only going to get worse. We made sure to tell the oncologist about this and she agreed that this was not good and decided to lower the dosage by 25% to try to curb some of the permanent damage. We’ll see if that does anything.
So we get into the chemo treatment room and, my husband, bless his heart, he immediately lays down and starts sleeping. He basically sleeps for the entire 8 hours we’re there. (rolls eyes) When its finally time to leave, we get home and, mind you, all the kids are home because its Christmas break, and he empties the dishwasher then heads upstairs to bed. That was the last time we saw him that day.
He woke up this morning around 7:30am (after sleeping for 14 hours) got dressed and went into work! face-palm
I just don’t understand it sometimes. It sort of pisses me off because I feel like he wouldn’t be so exhausted these first few days while he’s on the chemo box if he didn’t stay up drinking and smoking until the wee hours of the morning the 2 days-ish prior to going in for chemo. I’m getting the short end of the stick here and it sucks. You know what I’d like? I’d like them to check his blood alcohol level when he goes in for his chemo treatment, I’m sure that would be an interesting find. I think that we can all agree that starting chemo in that condition is not ideal, and I’m pretty sure that’s what has changed and that is why he’s so sleepy these first few days. He never used to get loaded the day before chemo, now he does. Ughhh But who am I to say anything to him? He won’t listen to me. I digress.
So I’m hoping for the best with this round. But I feel like we are right on schedule for the same 5 month timeline that we had for the first 6 rounds. Note that all 12 rounds were SUPPOSED to be completed in a 6 month time frame — but here we are, 6 months in, and only 8 rounds completed. We started chemo, round 1, on July 2, 2019. We started chemo, round 7, on Dec 2, 2019. Which means it took my husband 5 months to complete 6 rounds. I have no reason to believe these next 6 rounds will look any different. Figure in 2-3 bowel obstructions, a surgery, maybe an illness that causes a hospital stay and at least 2 times where we’ll have to wait an extra week due to his ANC levels being too low, and there you have it, on track for another 5 months of this.
Maybe it was the snow. Maybe it was because what I said finally resonated with him. Maybe it was because this last chemo round was far worse than any other round to date. Maybe it was the fact that I finally SHUT UP about it and let him make some decisions. Whatever the reason, my husband has decided to hold off the next round of chemo until after Christmas!
This was (Christmas) music to my ears! But I played it cool. I’m being very careful now not to show too much investment or concern, elation or overwhelming anguish in the decisions he’s making for himself. This is hard for me and I really have to check myself when I feel an abrupt reaction coming on. So far, so good. Its only been 2 weeks, lol So when he got back from his guys trip, I didn’t interrogate him on when he rescheduled his chemo appt. I didn’t remind him to call, I didn’t ask about dates or times, in fact, I didn’t say anything at all. It was KILLING me, BUT, I knew that if he wanted to share, he would. So I let it be.
The night he got home it had been snowing ALL day. It was beautiful! We were cozy in bed, the kids were asleep, or at least in their rooms, and we were laying there just talking. He was telling me about his weekend with his friends and I could tell that his batteries were fully recharged. He really did deserve a weekend away with his buddies. He needed it! I’m so glad he went and all was well while they were there.
Then he casually mentions that he’s decided to put off then next chemo round until after Christmas. My ears immediately perked up. He said that he believed he did his part in getting one round in during this crazy month and he agreed with me that waiting another week or 2 for the next round wouldn’t be a big deal. HALLELUJAH!! I thought to myself, of course not showing that emotion on the outside, but just listening to him talk. Then he continued, “I have it all planned out!” I thought, oh great. (rolls eyes) So I asked what the plan was, and he says “I’m planning to go in for chemo on the 26th!” …Well, it was a plan alright, not the plan I would have organized, but if that’s what he wants to do, I’m going to let him do it. At least I’ll have peace for Christmas!
So there it is! Chemo the day after Christmas, lol I bet he’s not called to schedule this yet and I wonder if he’ll even be able to get an appt on such short notice. I would remind him, but I don’t want to seem like I’m prying in his business, so I’ll just sit back and let him figure it out! It is sort of freeing, actually. If he can’t schedule chemo for the 26th, he’s the one who will have to deal with finding a date that will work and rescheduling everything, having his “plan” completely disrupted — I’m just going to be over here waiting for him to tell me where to be and what to do. This frees up SO MUCH space in my life for other things! Merry Christmas to us!
I want to provide a small update on where things stand. While I am not excusing my husbands behavior in any way, he did come to me and offer a bit of an explanation into what has been going on. Over the course of the past 168 hours, or 7 days, he’s basically been in bed for 120 of those hours. This was agonizing for everyone, including him. I think a lot of the time I don’t show the sweet and kind side of my husband. His cool, calm and collected side which is rational and balances out my crazy. I use this blog to help myself understand my own thoughts and emotions and in turn, they are often displayed in a way that is raw, full of intensity, harsh and abrupt.
And one-sided.
While I am very comfortable displaying my struggle flag, waving it around for all to see — helping me feel less alone and providing comfort and support while I struggle, my husband is very private about his struggle. He wants noone to know, and does not want sympathy or comfort from others. He even gets upset with me, sometimes, when I tell others about his struggle. He claims that it causes unnecessary worry and he would just rather say nothing. He would prefer to suffer in silence with only me knowing the (somewhat) full extent of what he is going through. I’m sure what he’s shared with me and what I have witnessed is not even half of what his true struggle actually is.
While waving my struggle flag around helps me tremendously because it allows me to organize my thoughts in a cohesive manner and I find it unbelievably cathartic to write it all down, as I feel it, as it’s happening. I’m not always right.
Yesterday (Saturday) was the first day that my husband was able to get out of bed since getting the chemo box removed. It took him a bit to get going, but he mustered up enough energy to join us at a volleyball tournament and even participate in a Christmas walk along one of the cutest and most festive streets in our city! It certainly wasn’t easy for him and he had to take frequent break’s, but he managed because he knew how much he had missed, and how much it was affecting me. So he sucked it up and powered through.
When we got home that evening, he looked exhausted. Not only has he lost, what is likely, another 5lbs from this week of being in bed, not really eating, and sleeping all day, but his eyes are sort of sunken in now, and its very easy to tell when he needs to rest. It kills me to see his body withering away knowing that its only going to get worse and it will never be “back to normal.” But I am hopeful that after chemo is over, he’ll be able to regain some strength and start to take better care of himself on a consistent basis. Right now its all about survival.
Once we got monster to bed, we started talking about next weekend. He’s been planning a trip with his 2 best friends for a few months. Why I never put 2 and 2 together that it was THIS month, in DECEMBER, during one of the ONLY weekends he’ll be feeling well, is beyond me. (face-palm) Regardless, he’s been planning this trip for months and its next weekend. They are all driving to Cincinnati together to watch a football game. The three stooges! lol Srsly tho, one of them is in kidney failure and has to bring ALL of his dialysis equipment with them to do dialysis every night for 12 hours, my husband is in stage 4 cancer and currently going through chemotherapy, and the other one … well, lol He’s the lucky one of the bunch I suppose, he’s just fine. But here they all are, bound and determined to watch this football game. So, Andy is supposed to get chemo again on that Monday after the football game and, in passing, he tells me, oh — I’m just switching my chemo to Tues instead of Mon that week. And I sort of start to flip out. I tell him that switching to Tues would completely throw off the entire schedule for the remaining treatments. Not just that, but we purchased tickets for the Polar Express, which is a BIG deal to me and if he switches to Tues then he basically has NO chance of coming with us to this event and that literally breaks my heart … and I go on and on.
This conversation begins a bigger conversation about what had transpired that week. I tell him about the internal struggle I was having and that I had been thinking about letting go of that burden of concern. When he challenged me to think about what would happen, like what the result would be from letting that go, how that would actually physically manifest itself — I told him. I was completely honest. Through tear filled eyes, I shared with him that I was terrified, because if I gave it all to him, he may never ask for my help. He may never tell me I was needed or wanted for the support I could offer. And that was what I thought would happen if I gave it away. It is the most terrifying outcome that could possibly happen for me out of this situation.
He looked at me, he walked over to me, he put his arms around me and he said “I can’t do this without you.” He told me that he did want my help and my support, that of course he wanted me there with him at all his doctors appts and during hospital stays, he appreciated all the time I was spending with him at every step along the way. He admitted he did not have the capacity to remember all the information or stats or even understand half of what they doctors were talking about and he relied on me for that too. He said the day he told me he didn’t owe me any information was a rough day for him. He was feeling awful and he was embarrassed and in pain from his constant diarrhea situation and was just completely over it. He took his frustration out on me and he didn’t mean to do that.
The conversation continued for a bit and he even said that he’d been thinking of just calling the oncologist and cancelling chemo for December, like I had wanted all along. He admitted that he didn’t want to deal with it either and clearly this was only going to get harder from here on out. He hadn’t made a decision yet, but he wanted me to know that he was considering it.
I was reading something today on a Facebook post in my Appendix Cancer Support group. The person posting was worried about an upcoming CT scan (something we call “scan-xiety”) and, fearing the cancer was back, was wondering what others who had a recurrence had seen/felt/been through just prior to that 6 month scan. So others were helping her out giving their experience and advice, and someone had commented with a response that literally shook my world. She said that she has decided not to worry about her scans any longer. She emphasized that she is not being complacent by any means, and that worry creeps into her life at very random times, but she had chosen to let the experts carry the burden of concern. She said she was doing her part in following their recommendations and staying on top of appointments and such, but this has allowed her to live her life free from guilt.
The burden of concern. Wow. This spoke to me.
This week began (again) the chemo journey for my husband. Almost 5 weeks to the day from his last surgery, he’s back on chemo. The time off was GLORIOUS! Andy was feeling well, he was getting his strength back and I could see the light starting to return to his eyes. It was all I could hope for! There was little to no arguing, a VERY good thing for us, lol There were simple nights, there was consistency with schedules, there was no panic or concern for his well being or his health. We went on dates, he was energetic and we were connecting again like never before! And I wanted it to last.
The one thing we did argue about during that 5 week hiatus was him restarting chemo again in December. I wanted him to hold off for another 4 weeks so we could have the holidays and just be “normal” for a little bit longer. In my mind I was thinking that this could be the last set of holidays I could ever possibly celebrate with him. I know that sounds awful, and BELIEVE ME, I do NOT want that to happen, or even to really think about it at all. But. It’s a reality I now have to contend with and as awful as it sounds, if that is our future, I want these last holiday memories to be full of life and joy and I want him to be healthy, showing off that light in his eyes, that has been missing for so many months, for the kids and for me! On top of that, I just do NOT want to be all alone during Christmas. Being a single parent doing EVERYTHING while he sleeps for 70-80 hours at a time. Drinking wine, watching Christmas movies by myself. Shopping by myself. Creating memories void of him, all the while trying to keep a happy face on for everyone else, while inside I’m screaming and crying. It’s just a lot to handle and I feel like he is not doing anything to acknowledge that struggle. In addition, the efficacy of this chemo is basically SO low at this point, that waiting another 4 weeks to start this again in January would NOT have one iota of effect on anything. Haven’t we been through enough this year? Why couldn’t we just take this month and celebrate how far we’ve come, give thanks for all the small miracles that have happened, and rest and recoup for the next 6 chemo cycles to begin again in Jan? Why can’t we think of the surgery as a blessing in disguise and use the break it has afforded us as a MUCH NEEDED reprieve, and extend it through the holidays?
His argument against all that? “The oncologist advises we start as soon as possible.”
Ughhhh WHAT? You mean to tell me that the oncologist who we don’t like and have had problems with from day 1 is all of a sudden your single source of truth and your taking her word as gospel? You mean the oncologist who’s advice you have always taken with a grain of salt? You mean the oncologist who’s recommendations you outright ignore and continue to do what YOU want to do regardless of what she tells you will be best? You mean to tell me that now, right now, all of a sudden, THIS is the advice you are taking as prescribed without any qualms or questions or thought into how that might effect all the other people around you? You really, truly think that this, THIS one thing, this one suggestion is the single piece of advice that is going to make ALL the difference in your course of treatment? Is that what you’re telling me?
It was.
And regardless of how much I pleaded and begged and reasoned, he had made up his mind and there was no changing it. I just couldn’t understand why he would choose this ONE thing to hang his hat on. It felt vindictive. It felt like he was doing this to spite me or to do the opposite of what I wanted him to do to win some weird, twisted and completely unwarranted power struggle. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. It made absolutely no sense to me. But, as I’ve learned, this is his treatment and every step of the way, he’s done what he wants to do.
So we met with our therapist and we talked about this issue. I know she can’t take “sides” but I swear she was on my side on this one! I voiced my concern that I just wanted to be on the same page, and not only were we NOT on the same page, but we were in completely different books.
What does it mean to be on the same page? In my mind, I think of a team. A football team, for example. Everyone on the team has the same goal, everyone is aligned on how to achieve that goal and the plays are agreed upon and carried out by those who are ALL on board with that strategy. While Andy and I have the same goal, there is absolutely no alignment on how we get to the end zone.
While we didn’t come to a resolution during our therapy session, we talked a bit more that night, and to my absolute surprise, something amazing happened! We were getting back into it and I again talked about being on the same page. He was having trouble understanding what I meant by this. So I kept trying to give him examples, and he kept telling me that he didn’t understand what I was saying. It was frustrating. So, I tried one last time to explain to him what I wanted, and how he needed to take that, and re-purpose it to fit into how he did things. I gave one last ditch example. The week before all this, I was at my annual work conference and I ended up with the emcee job for our Innovation Summit. My coworker (who happens to be a HUGE football fan, just like my husband) and I had worked on the script together for a couple weeks. He ended up putting a few football references into the script. Now, admittedly, I am not a sports person, and although I had NO idea who those players were, and I felt sort of silly saying their names and talking sports during my speech, I knew they were players on a football team. I made that connection. So, I asked Andy to relate that to the conversation we were having. In the same way I was telling him how I needed to be on the same page, he needed to be able to take what I was saying and put it into a context that he connected with. And he did.
He took a moment, thought for a second, and then walked over to the stove. He pulled our small kitchen rug that’s positioned under the stove over to the middle of the floor and walked back to me. He took my hand, looked at me and said, “I’m going to tell you something and you’re not going to like it.” He led me over to the rug and we both stood on it. He said, “This is our page, and I need you to be on it with me. I don’t like this page, but here we are.” I immediately started bawling my eyes out. He gave me a huge hug and I told him that I hated this page, but I was on it with him.
It was a soft and tender moment that I needed. I reset my expectations and immediately began to come to terms with being on board with starting the chemo again the first week of December.
And everything was going so smoothly! We went to the chemo center on Monday, he got the infusion, was sent home with the chemo box and things were okay. This is round 7 for him and this whole time we have been warned that the effects of this chemo are cumulative and my husband really wouldn’t start feeling all of them until the back half of the treatment cycles. Welp, we’re there, and he’s feeling it. He’s basically been in bed since Monday evening. Other than the 8 hours he was at work on Tuesday, he’s been in bed. Its Friday. He’s still in bed. That’s 5 days he’s been in bed. He’s never been this laid up with his other treatments, so I kept asking him if everything was alright and how he was feeling. Now, I get that this can be annoying. I absolutely appreciate that. Honestly, the one thing I just CANNOT stand right now is when people ask me if I need anything or ask how I’m doing. I know they mean well, and I know they don’t know what to say, so they ask me and they think I’ll know what I need. But I don’t know either. I am always kind when people ask — but, really. Stop. I digress. So I basically equate the how are you feeling? question that I’m sure he gets ALL the time to my what do you need? question. And I GET that! I get it. But its one thing for my husband to ask me what I need, and its a completely different thing for a friend or neighbor to ask what I need. First off, I would LOVE if my husband would ask me that question (hasn’t happened yet) but find it unbelievably irritating when other people ask me.
So on Wednesday, all was well, I had a really good work meeting that morning and I went up to check on my husband in bed and found myself asking him a series of questions, How are you feeling, are you still feeling nauseous, are you ready to leave to head to the chemo center to get the box removed? Not a big deal, just trying to get a gauge on his well being that day. He said that he would need 10-15 mins before he was ready to leave and I inquired further about this time he needed, asking him why? I was thinking he might be in pain or was so out of it that it would take him 10-15 mins just to compose himself and muster up enough energy to get out of bed. Basically, I just wanted to know if there was something I could do to help. So I asked another question about why he needed all that time — which apparently set off an entire series of events which left me completely dumbfounded and lost.
He rolled over to get out of bed, headed towards the door to the bathroom, and he said over his shoulder to me, “I don’t owe you any information.” As he continues his walk to the bathroom I say in a very defensive voice, “Excuse me? What did you just say to me?” And the the bathroom door shuts.
I could feel my blood start to boil. Wait. What just happened? What the actual fuck is happening right now? You don’t owe me anything? EXCUSE ME? OMG! I was furious at this statement! It was completely unwarranted, absolutely out of place and, MY GOD, everything was going SO WELL!! What do you mean you don’t owe me anything? DO YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE DONE FOR YOU???!! I mean, I know most everything I do goes completely unnoticed and unappreciated by him, but to be told blatantly, to my face, in an open statement, that he doesn’t owe me anything? Oh, I was livid. So I went into another bathroom and instead of getting ready to head to the chemo center I popped on my workout gear and got ready to head to the basement, where I have my home gym. You don’t owe me anything, huh? You’re right. I don’t owe you anything either, so why don’t you just take care of today on your own. I have better things to do with my time, I said to myself in the bathroom mirror, trying to come up with some comeback for this hurtful and reprehensible comment he just made.
I head down to the basement and start setting up for my workout that day, I’m moving the bench around and putting the correct weights on the bar. I’m getting my music setup and I get a text message, I see that its from my husband, but I don’t read it.
A few minutes later I hear the water run down the pipes from what I assumed to be a toilet flush. A minute or two after that, I hear my husband come down to the basement. He comes into the gym area where I’m still setting up and he stands there doing something on his phone. I look at him and I say “I will not be spoken to like that” and I start in on how absolutely uncalled for that statement was, all the while he’s still trying to do something with his phone. Irritated that he’s not talking to me, I just stand there and wait for him to finish his phone situation. He finally says, oh, got it and, not looking at me or making any eye contact, he holds his phone up. I hear a computer voice. Apparently he was downloading a text-to-voice app and it was reading aloud the text message he just sent me. Here’s what the computer voice said:
The information that I’m hiding from you, is that I have to poop. It’s not a good poop. It’s bad poop. I’d rather not tell you that, because I don’t want you to think about good trooper bad poop when we are being intimate. I don’t want you to think about smelling it, I don’t want you to think about me having poop on my balls. I would rather you not know about all the poop. But you seem to really wanna know about it. Because I don’t owe you information, I have a right to withhold certain items. I know you’re going through a lot right now, and I’m not going through too much at all, but I ask you to bear with me.
As soon as the computer voice finishes. He shuts his phone off and silently walks away.
This infuriates me even more than I was before. First off, I have SO many questions on what just happened here and what the contents of that text imply, but more importantly, I am NOT going through a lot right now, I was 1000% absolutely on board with ALL of this as of 30 mins ago, and NOW its all gone to shit — not because I’m overwhelmed with the situation but because my husband is being a complete ass hole!
So I follow up him the stairs, voice raised, telling him that I want to talk about this! That I didn’t understand what I had done and I was completely caught off guard and I was SO completely hurt at what he said. He calmly walks around the house gathering his things and as I’m getting more and more angry at this whole situation, he chimes in with little digs like oh, looks like I must have tripped another live wire, and other belittling comments about how I’m overreacting and he won’t talk to me when I’m like this. He walks out the door, gets in his car and leaves. He was going to the chemo center without me, and I was an absolute mess. I call my best friend and immediately start telling her what just happened.
It takes her a good hour to calm me down. She is probably the one person who’s advice I trust the most as she can see both sides of the story, frequently plays devils advocate and has a perspective that is unique. She lost her husband about 5 years ago in a tragic accident. She had 4 young children, the youngest being 7 months old at the time of his death. She knows what agony all this is on me and she might be the only person who can truly understand how I feel. She knows our struggle more intimately than anyone else on this planet, besides myself and my husband, and on this call, she gives me some advice that she had never given me before. She said that it was time to give him what he had been asking for this entire time. The thing I had been fighting against tooth and nail because it goes against EVERYTHING that I am. It’s basically asking me to be a different person, to change my entire thought process and compassion model and literally everything about how I do anything.
She was asking me to let go. She reasoned that my husband had told me time and time and time again that he didn’t want my help, he didn’t need my support, he didn’t like any of the ways in which I was attempting to encourage or empathize or champion his care. His actions have spoken louder than any words could. And she was right. He was constantly pushing me away and in turn, those actions told me I wasn’t needed. But I WANTED to be needed, I WANT to help him! The reality stands tho, he doesn’t want my help. Not when he’s feeling sick, not at doctors appts, in fact, he rarely wants me present anywhere, even when he’s on the phone talking about his treatment. The questions I want to ask his care team he finds irrelevant and won’t allow me the opportunity to ask. The hours of research and studying I have done to find second opinions and learn as much as I could about this cancer and how to combat all the symptoms of the awful treatment, he completely disregards and dismisses as unsubstantiated nonsense. The organizations that I have found which offer support and give advice for those faced with this diagnosis, he has no interest in reaching out to or connecting with in any way. He pays no attention to how his decisions will impact me or the kids or anyone else, for that matter. He simply wants to be left alone in this. …Except for maybe when he has a bowel obstruction and needs a ride to and from the hospital. Great. Now I’m a taxi.
So here I find myself. Less than a week ago, my husband and I shared this amazing moment where we were finally on the same page, and now — we’re again in different books. And I’m struggling with a decision I have to make. How do I stop caring? How do I stand back and just watch this happen from the sidelines? I am finding this internal struggle to be one of the most difficult things I have ever dealt with. But what choice do I have? Continue on like we have been? Fighting against eachother, me on one side wanting to give care and support. Him on the other side telling me to go the fuck away, he doesn’t want my help? They say the true definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I know what the next 5 months will be like if something doesn’t change. I can’t expect him to change, I know that won’t happen, so I have to be the one to completely change who I am, with the hope that it will only be temporary until this treatment is over. But still I am struggling, and that’s why this concept of handing over the burden of concern really piqued my interest. Sure, the original idea was about anxiety over scans (scan-xiety), but it is a direct parallel to my current situation. Handing over the burden of concern to my husband is something I never really entertained. Mostly because he doesn’t feel any type of burden by this diagnosis and just keeps on keeping on completely unphased. I have been the one to carry all this on my shoulders, but I have to question, is that the right place for it? Especially since there seems to be no slack being taken up by him. I’m coming to the realization that I’ve been shouldering all this on my own for far too long and maybe I just need to place that burden on someone else. My husband, the doctors, anyone else except me.
Im not sure how I’ll navigate this next part. I’m scared because on one hand, I want to remain in control and know the information, such as my husbands ANC levels, his test results, his weight, his tumor markers, all this which has been my coping mechanism and has helped tremendously throughout this journey! Especially since my husband doesn’t talk to me about this and I’m fairly certain he won’t share any of these stats with me … he probably doesn’t even take note of them. On the other hand, I want to let go, give him what he has been asking for and not have to constantly worry about this. I want peace in my life and to be free from this battle between me and my husband fighting against eachother.
I hate this. There is not an option that brings me peace or happiness in any way. It’s basically a choice between constant outward struggle between me and my husband or constant inward struggle between me and myself. I don’t know what to do.
Stage IV Appendix Cancer, Mucinous Adenocarcinoma 