Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My husband was diagnosed April 8 with a brain tumor. After the swelling had abated he understood that he was going to die. We were told two years. I felt that was very very positive thinking, I figured maybe 12 months. But he said to me I don’t want to linger, I don’t want to suffer, I don’t want to spend all our money.
I’ve said that before. He also promised that we would move heaven and earth to get us back to Pennsylvania so I could get back home which is where I wanted to be. I don’t talk about this much because it didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.
Mainly because when they do their best to remove the tumor they tell you they want him to be fine. They pronounced him fine. Their level of fine and my level of fine were two different things.
They were happy that he could speak and walk and shower himself and go to the bathroom by himself and he didn’t need to relearn these things — he was fine. But the surgery truly affected his memory. His short term memory was shot. We loved horrible science fiction. We thought it was wonderful. And we watched She Demon three times in two days because he couldn’t remember that we had watched it and he kept going through his DVDs and seeing it and saying let’s watch this, I haven’t seen it in years. I had to wake up in the middle of the night and go through the DVDs and take it out and hide it so he wouldn’t see it again so I wouldn’t have to watch it again.
So he didn’t remember making me that promise. And I cannot even begin to tell you how badly that hurt. Because we were a team. And he promised. And the stupid brain tumor took that away, more than that — the stupid stupid seizure took him faster than it should’ve. So I got cheated. I got cheated badly.
And my two sisters, one of which has dementia, calls me three to four times a day and no longer has the ability to invest in what I’m going through other than telling me platitudes, the same platitudes over and over and over again because they’re the only ones she knows and I’m so done with that because it just takes me right back to where he was at his end, and my other sister when I get upset about the stupid cancer gets all clinical and nurse-y on me and starts talking about you shouldn’t be angry at the cancer, it’s a simple disease process and I just want to tell her to shove it up her three letters and that she’s not the one with the *very bad word* dead husband.
OK, I just tapped into the anger. Yes, here I am 19 months later, and I still have the ability to get really really ticked off at this. And the reason is because anger is very much a part of grief. And I still say Kleenex ultrasoft are the best tissues out there, I just used four of them. And frankly, it just really seems like the universe is telling me to suck it up and sometimes it gets really hard to do it.
Thank you for being so honest and expressing how you feel. You are helping me and I appreciate you more than I could ever express.
I am so sorry for your loss of your husband and all you both went through. Sending you a virtual hug. I know what I am saying isn't much, but I truly mean it.
By the way, Nov3, the term “phase” is erroneous here. One of the biggest disservices that Kubler Ross did was call it that. Grief is not linear. You don’t move from one phase to another.
My husband suffered a massive seizure at the house, and he was transported via ambulance to the hospital. When he left the house he waved to me. He was alive. He coded in the ambulance.
When I got to the hospital I had to wait a few minutes to go back there, where they told me that they’ve been working on him for 35 minutes and they can’t get them back. And I wished to see him. And I walked in, and I took one look and the first thought out of my head was he’s dead.
BOOM — acceptance.
But it is something that we need to discuss because there isn’t a one of us that isn’t going to have to deal with grief. We all do — it is a natural part of life, you cannot protect yourself from it.
Here’s the thing, if you could protect yourself from it that means you never get to love. Grief is the price you pay for loving someone so much that it hurts when they go. I wouldn’t give up the 40 years I had with my husband.
So very true! We must accept there are good and not so good things in life. I wish you well!
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
