Hi I'm Cathy, My husband passed away August 3rd from lung cancer. Was diagnosed about a year ago March Srated with the chemo and rad starting June of last year. Survived that although it was awful... in October they did prophylactic brain radiation... Beginning of November he got pneumonia that he could not shake, they couldn't test the lungs to see if the cancer was gone because of the cloudiness of the scans from the pneumonia. They kept changing medications ...from antibiotics too high dose steroids in January , said it was organizing pneumonia ,still couldn't shake it, did a bronchoscopy in March and declared all the lung cancer was gone. They gave him two and a half to three more years. He still was feeling lousy. He just wanted to feel good one more time. The beginning of July he took himself to the hospital thought they would give him a breathing treatment but he escaped before I get off of work to go see what was going on , they wanted to admit him. So I called the doctor..told her what was going on and we went in to see her Thursday of that week, she wanted to admit him. ..He said no , we are having a birthday party for me on Saturday and wouldn't go yet. So I told her I would bring him in Sunday morning. I had our stuff ready cuz I know he would be admitted and kept nudging him for us to go... he just wasn't ready yet ..he knew something was up..just wanted one more "normal" morning. But around 11 a.m. we went. I asked them when they did the CAT, to do from his groin up. As he had been having stomach pain and back pain for the last month. The ER doctor came back after the cat and told him to get his Affairs in order he was a Walking Dead Man..( that's literally what he said) and only gave him a month maybe two months to live... his total liver was amassed with tumors and tumors that were already necrotic, it was innumerable inoperable and terminal. We were floored... The blood work showed all his liver enzymes and everything connected with it had doubled since the past Monday and all the blood work they did for 4 days doubled every day.. it went fast... He closed his car shop from the hospital and took care of all the legalities and formalities. Get on this computer to make arrangements take care of things an amazing amount of things when he felt so sick . He was released that Wednesday we had an oncologist appointment on Friday with his regular oncology. Of course they wanted to try another chemo drug on the liver but they had to get him healthy enough first to try it so they set up a bunch of appointments and tests. When we were leaving they asked if they could do one more blood draw so I took care of the paperwork and Ted took care of that. A couple hours later are doctors assistant called me I just kept saying I'm so sorry I'm so sorry and I kept asking sorry about what? And it was such a whirlwind I just remember her saying get a hold of hospice. His blood work was so bad but there was nothing they could do or even try. He was already starting to show signs of jaundice and every day hence his feet were little puffy and everyday got bigger and bigger until they split and weeped and blistered. .bloated up to his ribs and emaciated from there up ..within two weeks... !!! I watched the change every day !!! Hospice came the the day after I called to set us up with the intake and counseling. They were all wonderful . A nurse was supposed to come every Monday 4 assessment in blood work... I ended up calling almost every day and they were there almost every day to check in because he went bad so fast and with what was going on I wasn't sure how to take care of , with him not being hospitalized no one was quite sure what was going on. He finally agreed to a catheter because he was getting so big and so scared . After two weeks we had set him up for 24 hour care hospital bed they're switching him 2 morphine even though he didn't want it he would barely take the other pain meds because he wanted to be clear to take care of paperwork and houee matters and shut things down for me. In retrospect I can't believe how we work so hard to do all that when he was so sick ..he was a good man. I asked hospice how do you know when the time is near. And they said when he stops eating probably two weeks after. he was still eating a little bit and drinking water. His best friend and I cleared out the living room for the delivery of the hospital bed. By then hospice was there 24 hours so I ran out for 20 minutes to grab some things and when I came back his friend looked at me and said Ted wasn't doing too good. He went in the kitchen and told the nurse that Ted was circling the drain ! She came out and took his blood pressure and couldn't get a read. "Earlier in the day the other nurse kept trying to do a blood draw and couldn't get any blood out of him from anywhere." She brought me in the kitchen and told me he was dying right now. CJ and I just try to make him comfortable he was on the couch. Ted kept stretching out... Posturing. . He kept gasping for breath we didn't know what to do we kept talking to him and stroking him CJ was praying over him...He suffocated right in front of our eyes... the nurse said he probably threw a clot in his lung ...it happened so fast... I still can't get the look on his face when he was dying.. it haunts me...
Our journeys were different but the ending was the same. I have wondered if more time with wife would have helped. We had beat this twice before so why would this be any different. After her 6th and last round of chemo, things went downhill from there - 28 days to be exact. I kept asking her if she was in any pain and the answer was always no. I thought if the chemo failed, we would just go leave and have hospice care at home. Never got the chance and she passed in the hospital. She walked into the hospital looking and feeling great since recovering from cancer and subsequent stem cell transplant. In 35 days, it was unbelievable what the cancer and chemo had done. I remember telling my kids and her two brothers after she had passed that they need to remember her as a vibrant beautiful woman not how she looked when she passed. This is what cancer does. So when I think of her when she passed, I remind myself that the cancer took over and this is not how she would want to be remembered. So when my mind drifts to her final breath, I get extremely angry and blame cancer. The look on her face was the look of a cancer patient not my soulmate. I remember just days before when I asked her to smile and she did - it just melted me away. That is how I want to remember her.
I'm sorry Steve I just can't get that look of his face when he was dying out of my mind... I don't know what to replace it with
Another sleepless night. Night after night I wake up usually around 3:30 sometimes 1:30 can't go back to sleep rolling around in my head on a continuous loop. Sometimes I read most times it just lay there and stare at the ceiling. Join the Anytime Fitness gym so when I wake up in the middle of the night I have somewhere to go something to do haven't done it yet in the middle of the night though when I do go I stay there for hours just so I don't have to go home. But being Christmas time I've got things I got to do and work as well so haven't been there too often. I'm putting new floors in Ted's house it's time consuming considering the fellow that was supposed to put them in was paid and reneged so I'm forced to do it myself. Too many things to think about too many things to do I never really grieved yet just kept running around like a crazy person so I wouldn't have to face it. Now it's just Hans me in the middle of the night
