My husband of 29 years is dying of cancer. Life wasn't planned around this. By this time, we should be almost ready to retire; traveling the US in a motorhome visiting all the national parks with our grandchildren. Instead, I'm working from home as a consultant, with my husband home every day with me. Don't get me wrong - I love my husband more than the day I married him. It hasn't been an easy 29 years, but I've learned (and I hope he has) from the good and the bad events.
But now... head & neck cancer invaded our lives and it's being stubborn. First there was chemo and radiation for 7 weeks - every weekday. That worked well for about 6 months, then it came back in the lung and fatty tissue. Another chemo drug for several weeks. That worked well for about 3 months, but it never resolved the lung lesion and now there's tumors in the liver. More drugs. Now all the tumors are growing bigger and more are popping up. When does it stop?
How can I answer him when he asks 'about how much time do you think I have'? I struggled with these type of questions (Do you think the drugs will work? or What do you think the test results will be?) for many months. I used to tell him what I thought he wanted to hear - but I'm too tired and I ask him 'I don't know - what do you think?' He likes to talk and I don't, so it works well for us.
Now I have a bigger problem - there's so many drugs to take at night, that he behaves like a drunk. He gets up from bed, wobbles to what ever he plans on doing (tonight was getting the dogs a treat for staying indoors during this frigid temp. Then he thinks it's funny how he could easily get hurt.
And on top of this, he won't remember a thing of this tomorrow morning! So what's the bother getting mad and trying to help settle him down???
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