11 weeks and 5 days

11 weeks and 5 days we knew you had cancer for and then you were gone. Just like that, you held my hand, your breathing slowed and in a moment you were gone.

There were no fireworks or explosions, the world didn't end. The clock kept ticking and the sun rose.

The only true gentleman I ever knew has gone forever.

Geoff Addicott
27th February 1944 - 17th November 2009

This blog will continue however, in what format I'm not sure yet but I'm not leaving you just yet.

Answers?

Another week, another set of problems. The trouble is this time I'm not sure I want the answers. Your mood hasn't improved very much but now that comes with other problems. You are very unsteady on your feet, it's almost as if you are drunk.

We mention it to the oncologist, or actually I do and get shouted at by you for doing so. You feel as though I have betrayed you by saying these things to the doctor, I hope you forgive me.

The oncologist is as concerned as me, I think he could see the change in you too, they want to send you for a brain scan as it could reveal the answers, answers I'm not sure I want to know.

You also can't drive, you're frustrated and I guess you feel like your last little bit of independence has gone from you.

So now it's more waiting, waiting for the scan, waiting for results. I'm not sure it will mean if the cancer has spread to your brain, I was too afraid to ask.

Is this a normal way to feel?

I've forgotten what normal is, I wonder what we talked about before this? I wonder what life was before this, I have forgotten.

Chemotherapy

And so the hell on earth that is chemotherapy begins. No matter how much people who have had experience tried to prepare us for how awful it was going to be, nothing could have prepared us for this. How can something that is designed to make you better, make you so very, very ill.

Friday was chemo day and you were superb, I thought you were one of the lucky ones. By Saturday night you were feeling a little ill, Sunday you felt fatigued all day and by Monday you couldn't get out of bed.

For all we had prepared for how ill you would feel, to see you with a mouthful of ulcers, unable to eat, with no energy for anything is horrendous. It certainly makes you ponder on life, quality or quantity? We already know it isn't a cure and what's the use of having longer to spend it like this.

What I wasn't prepared for was how emotionally fraught you would feel, I guess it's easy to be philisophical about dying when you feel so alive, when you're feeling half dead it's a little more difficult. It's so hard to keep you positive and yesterday you sobbed, I've never seen you like that but can totally understand how you feel. I sobbed too, but I waited until I had gone out and sobbed in the car in a supermarket carpark.

All of these feelings after just one session, Friday it starts again.

Is this a normal way to feel?

Living the Dream

I've been neglecting the blog a little, maybe that means we're coping better. I doubt it, I think it just means we have been coming to terms with things.

I still can't get over how brave you are, how accepting. I still feel so cheated and you do too, it's so difficult.

But I refuse to talk about you as if you are dying, I can't think of you that way when you are so very much alive and that's why it's time to start living the dream. That's why I haven't been writing, we've been having fun living.

A family holiday last weekend, making memories and doing things we've been putting off for various reasons. It was so great to see you smile and laugh, even though you found it tiring.

There will be time for tears.. Later. Now is not the time, now is the time for living, having fun and living like there's no tomorrow.

Is this a normal way to feel? I sure hope so!

Watching you sleep

I woke early this morning and lay there watching you sleep. You're so beautiful to me and I really could burst with love for you.

Positive thoughts we said, to concentrate on life and the things we can cram in. I want to stay positive, I really do but lying there watching you sleep, listening to you breathing and the trouble that simple act is causing you is breaking my heart.

The thought of you being in pain, the thought of you suffering and struggling for breath. I'm finding myself thinking about how the end will be and I'm scared it's going to come sooner than we hope.

I thought I'd come to terms with losing you, I thought I'd come to terms with you having cancer and now I have I have to come to terms with how hard it's going to be in the end.

Tears are falling, you wake and look at me. "Look at you, silly sausage" you say. I wipe the tears, paint on my smile but the thoughts are still there and I seem to be incapable of shaking them off today.

I wonder what you're thinking behind your smile and I wonder if this is a normal way to feel.

Palliative care

Palliative care, the words that blew my world apart. I was watching you and how brave you were, not a tear despite words such as inoperable and secondaries. I was determined to be as brave as you were and I was succeeding and then those words came. Palliative care.

I guess we were always hoping for the best while preparing for the worse but nothing prepared you or I for what they said.

You always had to be different, you couldn't have a normal tumour they could cut away, not you. You had to have a rare type of lung cancer in the lining of your lung. The most aggressive kind you can get and it's already spread to your kidneys and your adrenal glands.

You didn't want chemo so you asked the question we didn't want to know the answer to. How long without it? Four months she said, then your mask dropped, I saw you visibly recoil as if you had been slapped and it broke my heart.

In the quiet room the tears came, you're angry, I'm angry. Facing the darkest thoughts and trying not to give them words, as if putting them out there into the air will make them real.

Now it's time for living, not thinking about dying.

Is this a normal way to feel?