Friend's spouse just given 6-12 months...

[basshorse]

My girlfriend and teaching partner just left a little while ago. She was out of town most of the day getting a second opinion for her husband's lung cancer. A couple of weeks ago, he developed pneumonia and had surgery to clean out a lung. I had a nagging feeling I should go by the hospital the day of the surgery and got there in time to hear that he could have mesothelioma (he had asbestos exposure years ago) or lung cancer (never smoked). This seemed to have taken the surgeon by surprise as much as us. My girlfriend had her niece (also a nurse) with her, but had sent everyone else home because she really didn't expect any issues with the surgery. I was glad I was there, but boy, was it hard to hear. My girlfriend is a "tough cookie" and I am not used to seeing her so vulnerable. She has avoided looking at the test results that they have had access to, preferring to hear it directly from the doctor. She said lots of people in the family want "time frames"...tonight she collapsed in my living room...saying she doesn't want to put a time limit on his life, but was told 6 months without chemo and 12 months max...with chemo. She said, "I can't imagine him not being here this time next year." The chemo is just meant to manage the pain the cancer is causing. My friend and her husband just celebrated 30 years... They are best friends. She says it feels like she is in a nightmare and just has to wake up at any minute...Our staff at work are fixing meals, someone on staff has been mowing their lawn, my husband (a mechanic) checked her car over tonight. She is still wanting to teach, because she says it is the one normal thing in her life. I help her as much as I can with this. They do not have children and her in-laws are driving her crazy...I'm sure her in-laws are devastated... Just heart breaking...They are in their early 50's. ... Reminds me to appreciate the moments with my own family and the little things in life... ~ Becky

 

[Candleliteranch]

I'm so sorry to hear this. It seems like so much illness lately and just makes my heart ache to hear of these peoples suffering. I will ad you friends and you to my prayers.

 

[dreamlandnh]

Please let them know they are in prayers

 

[rockin r]

Prayers for your friend...{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}} for you.....we are sorry....

 

[Basketmiss]

So sorry to hear this- sending prayers and (((HUGS))) to you all in this bleak time...

 

[basshorse]

Thank you for the thoughts and prayers. I am a school teacher in a very high needs school...4 autistic kids, many kids who have parents in jail or on drugs. I am really having to work hard to stay balanced. So many needs and only so much of me to go around. I find myself doing less and less with my little horses and dogs...just trying to stay afloat with job, my beautiful 7 year old daughter, and my husband. I've been down this road before. At the school I taught before this one...we had 11 people pass away in a 10 year period of time. (Yes, it was so bad, in disbelief, we started counting!) The three that hit me the hardest were a student, who was also my neighbor...cancer and a close teacher friend that had a brain tumor. They were diagnosed the same weekend and passed 2 years later on the same weekend. Then, my daughter developed fever seizures and after 3 we took her to specialists in another town. The weekend we were leaving to see doctors (in blizzard like conditions) a family from our school (one child had been in my classroom) were in a motorhome accident. The parents and 4 youngest children (2 attended our school at the time) were killed. The child from my room survived and went on to graduate from high school. I'm so proud of him. There were more tragedies... but, too depressing to go down the list any further. With my daughter having seizures, I was afraid we would lose her too. Thankfully, she has grown out of them, although it is still always in the back of our minds anytime she is ill.

Anyway, what made all of that drama more difficult was my principal at the time was a slacker and told our central office we were fine..even refused letting in a crisis team a couple of times after some of the sudden deaths. We were very isolated. He would come back from hunting trips bragging about his latest conquest when we were returning from funerals which he never went to... Eventually, several of us blew the whistle on him and he was fired for harassing teachers and not doing our evaluations...adding even more drama to our plates. They hired someone even worse...rather than nurturing our very talented award-winning staff, she decided we must be the problem... and only 3 teachers from a staff of 30+ now remain. She was later encouraged to retire early. I was one of the first to leave...but dealt with the 2nd crazy principal for 3 years. After going through that, you kind of bond with people and it is hard to leave...you think...gosh, no one else would understand.

It was a breath of fresh air to go to the new school. The staff is very warm and hard-working. However, the kids are so needy and now my friend is dealing with this and I'm trying to support her. Anyway, I apologize for the long post. I guess this is just familiar territory and it scares me a bit... ~ Becky

 

[CyndiM]

Your friend and her family are in my thoughts and prayers.

((((HUGS)))) to you for all you have been through and for the rough road you are about to travel with her.

 

[Charlene]

i'm so sorry. i can remember all too well when gary was diagnosed. i asked his oncologist what the best case scenario was. he told me with chemo, he hoped he could give me another 2 years or so but it would depend on so many things. at the time, 2 years sounded like such a long, long time. i thought, with all of the new advances in cancer treatment, in 2 years it was possible that new drugs would emerge that would give us even more time so i held out hope. sadly, that did not happen.

your friend is in for a roller coaster ride of emotions like none she has ever been through. i pray that she finds the strength to rally when she needs to but you must also let her cry and get hysterical when she can no longer cope. those times will pass and she will rally again but when they happen, they are scary for her and they will be scary for you.

unless you have, personally, gone through this nightmare, there is no way you can possibly understand. when gary was sick and after his death, when people told me they "knew" what i was going through, i knew they didn't. that's not to diminish one single bit the loss of an uncle or a friend or a cousin or even a parent or sibling but, when you lose the one person you felt your life depended on, there is just no comparison. the only thing i can think of that would be more emotional would be the loss of a child. there is nobody on this earth i admire more than a parent who has lost a child and has still managed to go forward.

i wish there was something i could tell you to say that will comfort your friend but there is not. she will feel all alone and even the best intentions won't make that feeling go away. gary has been gone almost a whole year and i still wait for him to walk in the door and holler "honey, i'm home!!!" people tell me i'm doing so well but they don't see me at night when i am sitting alone on the couch watching a t.v. show that we used to watch together, dreading the thought of getting into that big, empty bed. these are all things you friend will face and believe me, even if she's never voiced it to you, she is already trying to figure out how in the world she will survive.

i wish your friend the best and she is so lucky to have you at her side! God bless.

 

[basshorse]

Charlene: Thank you for sharing your "voice of experience"... You are an amazing woman! I am so sorry that this was part of your life experience.

What makes it so hard sometimes is that a lot of people are simply avoiding them...they don't know what to do, what to say..or just want no part of it...too scary. I've made the commitment to be there for her as best as I can be. Of course some people have stepped up to help in ways she never expected. I can't begin to imagine what it was like for you or will be for her. I saw someone wearing a t-shirt the other day that said "cancer sucks"...pretty much summed up things for me. ...

Again, I'm reminded to be thankful for health and family... Thanks everyone...I apologize for the dump of stuff...but, it just got a little overwhelming this weekend... ~ Becky

 

[Charlene]

becky, my dear, you have nothing to apologize for. i think it's cathartic for you to come here and voice your feelings. i don't consider myself amazing although i thank you for that. i am just taking things day to day. it's no longer minute by minute for me but still, there is not a single second of any day that goes by when i don't think about gary and how much i miss him. there were a few times, during the end of gary's illness, that his mom and i spoke of being free of the pain of watching him die. i told her i thought it was selfish of me to be thinking how, when the end finally comes, i will no longer have to deal with it. she understood and told me it wasn't selfish but even to this day, were it not for his suffering, i wish i had him here just so i could care for him. maybe THAT is selfish, i just don't know. it's hard to come to grips with and at times, it's just so confusing.

other than family and one or two close friends, the people we used to socialize with have long abandoned me and that's ok. i know part of the reason is that people feel uncomfortable being around me because they know i am grieving. i don't see how i will ever stop so if those people don't care to visit, that's ok with me. when i feel the need for interaction with someone other than horses or dogs, i walk a mere 200 yards and i visit gary's mom or his brother. it is times like this that, as cliche as it sounds, you really find out who your friends are!

as hard as it was to watch gary decline and as hard as it was to realize he had taken his last breath, none of that compares to now. back then, i was on a mission to keep him as comfortable as possible and to plan the sort of funeral he would have wanted. there wasn't time to think about how it would be later, when i would be alone. now that the time is here, every day is a struggle to deal with fences that need to be fixed, the dang leak under the kitchen sink that i thought was taken care of, winterizing the pump house to assure a steady supply of water when temps fall, having to empty mousetraps myself, ewwww, wondering if i really need new brakes on the truck or is somebody taking advantage of me...the list goes on and on! but i am learning to deal with all of that and the way i do it is to think hard about how gary would have done it. he taught me well and i can swing a hammer with the best of 'em!

this is getting off track, this isn't about me, it's about you and your friend and how she will cope with all of this. i can tell you really care and even just sitting with your friend, holding her hand, will go a long way to comfort her. you don't have to talk unless she wants to. words aren't important, just you being there is what will count in the long run. again, she is lucky to have you in her life.

 

[basshorse]

becky, my dear, you have nothing to apologize for. i think it's cathartic for you to come here and voice your feelings. i don't consider myself amazing although i thank you for that. i am just taking things day to day. it's no longer minute by minute for me but still, there is not a single second of any day that goes by when i don't think about gary and how much i miss him. there were a few times, during the end of gary's illness, that his mom and i spoke of being free of the pain of watching him die. i told her i thought it was selfish of me to be thinking how, when the end finally comes, i will no longer have to deal with it. she understood and told me it wasn't selfish but even to this day, were it not for his suffering, i wish i had him here just so i could care for him. maybe THAT is selfish, i just don't know. it's hard to come to grips with and at times, it's just so confusing.
other than family and one or two close friends, the people we used to socialize with have long abandoned me and that's ok. i know part of the reason is that people feel uncomfortable being around me because they know i am grieving. i don't see how i will ever stop so if those people don't care to visit, that's ok with me. when i feel the need for interaction with someone other than horses or dogs, i walk a mere 200 yards and i visit gary's mom or his brother. it is times like this that, as cliche as it sounds, you really find out who your friends are!

as hard as it was to watch gary decline and as hard as it was to realize he had taken his last breath, none of that compares to now. back then, i was on a mission to keep him as comfortable as possible and to plan the sort of funeral he would have wanted. there wasn't time to think about how it would be later, when i would be alone. now that the time is here, every day is a struggle to deal with fences that need to be fixed, the dang leak under the kitchen sink that i thought was taken care of, winterizing the pump house to assure a steady supply of water when temps fall, having to empty mousetraps myself, ewwww, wondering if i really need new brakes on the truck or is somebody taking advantage of me...the list goes on and on! but i am learning to deal with all of that and the way i do it is to think hard about how gary would have done it. he taught me well and i can swing a hammer with the best of 'em!

this is getting off track, this isn't about me, it's about you and your friend and how she will cope with all of this. i can tell you really care and even just sitting with your friend, holding her hand, will go a long way to comfort her. you don't have to talk unless she wants to. words aren't important, just you being there is what will count in the long run. again, she is lucky to have you in her life.

 

[basshorse]

OK, My fingers are really fumbling on this laptop that I am not used to yet. Mary Lou and Charlene, Thank you so much! I'm just going to work on taking good care of myself and my family; so when she needs me I can be there for her... Charlene...thanks for the PM...I have to race to a soccer game...will reply later. Hugs and many, many thanks, Becky

 

[Magic]

I am so, so very sorry to hear this. Your friend is very lucky to have you, one of those sometimes rare friends that doesn't run away in fear when the worst hits.

Sending prayers and good thoughts, wishing I could do more...

 

[bfogg]

I am so sorry to hear about your friends husband.

Charlene has been a big help to me just having someone who has gone through it has been a big help to me.

Your friend is lucky to have a good friend like you. I am also so lucky to have so many friends at my side and just a phone call away if I need them. I know they would be there for me in a second.

Many are on this wonderful Forum Mary Lou created for us.

To her and to you.

Love

Bonnie

 

[basshorse]

Again...thanks so much...

Just gotta love the people on this forum. ~ Becky