Coping with Loss of Wife,Best Friend and Soul Mate

Hi, 

I have been with my beautiful wife for 30 years, and we have 3 beautiful teenage daughters.

My wife has been fighting breast cancer since 2009, with numerous Chemotherapies, natural rememdies, surgery and radiotheraphy - after 4/5 years she was in reammission, and then 9 months later in 2015 it came back harder and faster - she has daily lung drains, and was put on various chemotheraphy drugs and in April 2017 she was deemed stage 4 as it had spread to her spine, liver, kidney, both breasts, neck etc - We thought the worse.

I took 9 months off from work to care for my wife, and in that time I studied Chemotherapy treatments, wrote to Pharmecetical firms, and went through weekly blood results in order to do anything I could to save my beloved wifes life.

With my research I was also able to push the Oncologists and talk to them on a 1-2-1 level (even my wife said it was like 2 Oncologists where in the room !) - and I was the one who discovered why my wife had rejected the Chemotherapy in the first place due to her Albumin levels where very low.

Armed with Blood results every week, checking white cells, B12, Albumin I was able to tailor my wifes diet and she was able to have the chemotheraphy week on week.

Working together we managed to keep her alive for another 9 months, however sadly it caught up with her and she died in December 2017 just after Christmas.

Althought this is still very raw, I miss her every day, and have 3-4 breakdowns a day, constant crying, longing, and yearning for my wife - I wear her perfume and jewellery and still sleep with her dressing gown and have kept the house exactly as she left it so ther are no changes "when she returns home"

In 30 years we were together, we were only away from each other for 2 weeks, and we were more than Husband and Wife, she was my soul mate, best friend, we were a unit, we held hands, told each other we loved each other everyday, and I wanted no one else - she was my everything and the only thing in my life I was ever afraid of losing.

I still cry in pain that this could happen to someone so beautiful, and I have had the phases of grief doubt, and anger.

I hate the cliches, "be strong for the children" but how can I when I am not strong for myself, and the girls are teenagers, they are in their rooms talking to their friends, or boyfriends, and I am left on my own - the girls will grow up and I will walk the rest of my time on this earth without my beloved.

I particularly like the "it will get better after the funeral" this I can tell you is ********* ! it has got worse - I have more crying breakdowns, even when I go to places that me and my wife visited I hyper ventilate and freeze on the spot.

Yes I have couselling, but everyday the pain intesifies as does the emptiness and hollowness inside.

I am told I did all I could for my beautiful wife, and I would give everything I own just to have her back with me again.

I wanted to share my story, with others and I read a statistic once that said "75 men a day under the age of 50 are made widowers" and now I am in that statistic.

I am finding it hard to cope everyday, and it feels like my head is caving in with all the tears and emotions - I assume I am not alone

Simon 

Parents
  • Hello Simon. I have just come across this site and have read your letter. I lost my wife to cancer on the 20th December 2017 and am like you totally brokenhearted. I searched the internet and read everything I could find about cancer. My wife had bile duct liver and gall bladder cancer, but I still hoped I could find something. I looked after my wife at home for over a year and slowly watched her getting weaker everyday, although she fought hard. It was devastating looking after my wife and trying to save her while all the time she was wasting away before my eyes. The nurses came in everyday as well to give drugs into a syringe driver and it tears my heart ot now thinking of the pain she was in and never complained. I am truly sorry for your lost.
Reply
  • Hello Simon. I have just come across this site and have read your letter. I lost my wife to cancer on the 20th December 2017 and am like you totally brokenhearted. I searched the internet and read everything I could find about cancer. My wife had bile duct liver and gall bladder cancer, but I still hoped I could find something. I looked after my wife at home for over a year and slowly watched her getting weaker everyday, although she fought hard. It was devastating looking after my wife and trying to save her while all the time she was wasting away before my eyes. The nurses came in everyday as well to give drugs into a syringe driver and it tears my heart ot now thinking of the pain she was in and never complained. I am truly sorry for your lost.
Children
  • Gord, thank you - your reply has brought home shades of 100% recognition, I too looked after my wife at home for many months, the nurses coming in every day to assist me with the lung drains, and like you I searched the internet, wrote to professors and pharmaceutical companies to try and find something. I replying to this post with tears in my eyes, because you seem to have gone and are still going down the same path as me, your reply has hit the nail on the head, and your wife appears to have the same mentality as my wife, did not complain and get on with it, I know our wives are not in pain anymore, it's just now I am afraid to bear this pain for the love we gave - I am struggling tbh every day, I have 3-4 breakdowns with tears, struggled to go to place we went too. I am truly sorry for your loss as well, and I won't use any cliches which people have tried on me, like "it's gets easier" etc, because at the moment it hasn't - please keep in touch.
  • Hello again from Gord. I find it a problem logging in to this chat site. One minute your there and then you lose it somehow. Anyway just to let you know I have been married for 44 years and new my wife for 46 years. I just sit in the house now alone and widh for night time to go back to bed usually about 7.30 - 8pm. Life now for me means nothing as I have lost everything by my wife passing away. It is not getting easier and I attend Clan cancer centre for beravement counselling. It is okay while I am there but then I just want home again to hide away. My wife like your wife was everything to me and now there's nothing. I cannot see a future for me in this as the pain and hearbreak is too much and speak to my wife all the time as I long to be with her. My deepest thoughts are with you. Gord.

  • Hello again Sibruv.

    Thought I would write again and say I am still going to my counselling at the Clan support centre. When I get out of bed in a morning I always hope that today is going to be a good day. Then I have a thought, or I find something of my wife's and all the grief starts up again. I spoke to my doctor about it and he basically said I need to start getting out and meeting people. As though it was that simple. I think unless anyone has lost a wife or husband, they haven' t a clue what we are going through. I still want to be with my wife and have had bad thoughts in my head, however my wife would hate me for even thinking this way.

    I go to bed at night where I feel close to my wife, and start talking to her and try and go to sleep hugging her pillow and wishing it was her. I even spray her deodorant in the house just to remind me of her being here, although I believe she is here with me in spirit.  Probably some people would think i' m crazy, but I don't care what they think. Anyway, you are probably going through a terrible time as well and I can only say I'm so sorry for your heartache, and the pain you will have in your heart. Thinking of you.  Gord.

  • hi my wife diedsept 18 wijh lung cancer she also hadpulmonary fibrosis we kept her golng for12 monthsand she fought for her life so hard we were married 58 years and i miss her every secondthe only thing that keeps me golng is  the afterlife i started studiying i am not eating sieeplng and very rarely go out   ther is no purpose to life without herjohnB

  • Hi Terence. Nothing I or anyone can say to you that will make this terrible time in your life easier. I am so sorry you are here with all of us others who have lost the ones they love. It is the worst experience in life you will be going through. It is ten months since my wife died and the pain, loss and emptiness is still with me. Life for me stopped the day my wife died. People will start to say all the wrong things to you like, you will get over it, things will get better, and all that unhelpful words. For me, it is a daily battle with myself to go on, and like you, I know I wil see my wife again. I have no purpose in life now without my wife and best friend either.

    58 years is a lifetime together, and if you are like me, it will feel like you have been cut in half. The pain is horrendous, and I feel for you Terence.

     

  • thanks for your kind words you must be going through what i amits awfull what i cant understand all the resurch thats been going on for years they are still no tuther on wheres aii the money go

  • Yes your right i think its the poor record of the nhs in diagnosis it everything takes forever scans take weeks my partner died because the lousy drs doing a wait and see thing to many people subcribing to nhs and this guv of scoundrels cutting funding plus theres over two hundred types of cancer to me we are still in the dark ages and to many fat cats with there fingers in the till

  • Hi Terence. I stopped giving money to cancer research as all they ever offer for treatment is their chemo and radiotherapy. The money seems to go to the ones running cancer research. My wife was offered chemo by her oncologist, who then told us it doesn't work anyway. It's as though they are on a bonus to get rid of it to patients. She had five days of radiotherapy on her stomach, and it burned her. She must have been in agony, but never complained.

    I asked the doctors for Sativex, and was told it was not on the NHS, and although I offered to pay for it they refused it. There is a company in England who makes this stuff and sells it abroad for millions, however, our government won't give it to patients here. It's a disgrace.

    The NHS took forever to diagnose my wife's cancer, and I had to threaten them by telling them I would take my wife for a private MRI scan if they would not speed things up.I looked after my wife for about a year and a half in the house and watched her slowly fading away from me. It is a terrible disease, and we are no where near a cure. I don't think the pharmaceutical companies want to find a cure. It is soul destroying being here without my wife, and I know you will feel the same. Just empty. Try and take care of yourself Terence, but I know it's not easy. Gord.

  • thanks gord   how can you take of your self when the most treasured thing in your life has gone if you both biew up at the same time when  one diedit would be far kinder now all that is left is memorys  ifind myself adding the years i may have left  hoping for an afterlife so i can be with her again trying to smile when your family call it is so cruelthey say with time it heals but its very hard   terencem

  • Hi Terence. My wife and  I were just retiring when we got the devasting news. We used to do everything together and now it would be pointless to go anywhere myself without my wife to talk to and enjoy each other's company. We had all this dreams of what we would do in retirement after working all our lives, however, it was not to be. Just left with a lot of guilt and regrets now, thinking we should have done things earlier in our lives, but we always said save for a rainy day and we will do it when we retire. Everyone tells me I've got memories as well, but I don't want memories, I want my wife.

    I have lost all confidence in myself now, and don't go out much at all, as it is a couples world, and now I don't feel part of it. I go to a bereavement group at a CLAN cancer drop in centre. This is okay when I'm there, but you still have to come home to an empty house. Life is a very lonely and empty place now, and nobody knows the heartbreak you are going through, even your family, unless they have lost their wife or husband. Gord.