My husband was 78 in January and we'd been together for thirty years. We did everything together. He'd lost weight over the past year and the GP finally sent him for a gastroscopy and CT scan. They found oesophagitis and a shadow on his lung that they said was adencarcinoma but as it had been discovered early would be no problem to surgically remove. Despite having COPD and three previous heart attacks, and being underweight, they decided he was strong enough so he had a partial lobectomy on 29th November last year. It was successful and he was recovering when they sent him home with 2 portable drains (as the lung collapsed). Then he had a heart attack at home and went back to hospital in an ambulance for an emergency angioplasty to unblock a stent. Whilst he was recovering from this, he had a cardiac arrest on Xmas morning. They gave him CPR and he came home on 2nd January. He had a constant cough and very poor appetite so was also very weak and couldn't do much for himself so I cared for him. By the time he had to go to his outpatient's appointment for the lung surgery, he couldn't even stand and had stoped eating altogether so they kept him in hospital and I was told he had Aspergilloma, a fungus ball inside the cavity. He received treatment but died in the early hours of March 1st. On his death certificate they put Aspergilloma and Carsinosarcoma (resected Nov 2017), Ischaemic heart diseas and COPD. Carsinosarcoma had never been mentioned before and I am waiting to discuss this with someone. Really, it came as a shock because I thought he was getting better. They were feeding him through a tube, so he should have been getting nourishment, but he ended up dying because he couldn't breathe. I was with him an hour or so before he died and he told me to go home, that he wanted to sleep. He managed to tell me he loved me. I went home because it was after midnight and very bad weather conditions, and I wanted to sleep before I came back to hospital the following day. Had I known he was going to die, I'd never have left him. I am so puzzled. Where did the Carsinosarcoma come from? Where did the Apsergilloma come from? Why didn't I realise how near the end he was? I keep wanting to do things over again differently but I know I can never do that. I do have family close enough to support me but I prefer my own company. We didn't socialise very much, preferring to do things together, just the two of us. I miss him so much.
