Hi Devondog

Dont give up life must go on you will have days like these as only early stages for you .  I to lost my husband last September  he was only 54yrs old to unexpected lung cancer that spread to his spine.  We only had a short amount of time as diagnosed in late June last year.  We had been together 26 happy years and have two beautiful children aged 15 and 18 at that time .  We have got an amazing puppy so I do recommend one of those for yourself if you can do this .  I have just bought a static caravan on a holiday resort as my only little business to keep me occupied.  I also get crazy upset as we were still so much in love and think and cry about him everyday but do lift myself up and say I am here and he would not want me to go down that dark hole . Do you have children ? 

Victoria 

I’m grateful for your kind words which are definitely sincere, but also sorry if I have brought sadness to you when I say I’m struggling to cope and can’t go on really I’m sorry for your pain aswell, I hope that your son gets the news we all pray is good and put rest to the heinous disease that’s blighting our lives . Me and Andrea are total opposites that’s what the minister said at her funeral, my daughter gave the minister information about Andreas life , I couldn’t to upset. I didn’t think  we were that different till it was mentioned . Before Andrea was I’ll she’d say Ray are you coming up stairs to talk before I get up, I’d say ok but not too enthusiastically, she’d say why do you get up so early , I’d say why do get up so late / which isn’t that late by the way . If I could hear that request again when I’m downstairs, which I should admit to myself is never going to happen . I’m trying to move forward and be ok not overly happy but ok . I look at couples out and about not with envy but thinking your together you’ll go home and share stuff ,I never thought I’d be alone I always thought we’d be with each other for ages , we planned our later years together for when I retired. I didn’t even think of being alone when we found out Andrea was dying I thought there’ll be a way around this , naive way of thinking isn’t it. I’ve got counselling today at 13:00 hrs the counsellor has recommended more than the usual 4 sessions, 6+ must come across as a right nut job . I’ve still got all of Andreas clothes and pyjamas hanging up and in drawers. Andreas dad has said that I should get rid of them it makes no sense keeping them. He also lost his wife , Andreas mam to cancer she died aged 55 and Andrea was there till the end and asked me to make sure that when her time came to make sure she wasn’t in pain like her mam. I’m signing off to prepare for my counselling, love to all that deserve it you know who you are xx and sorry if I have made anyone sad , xxx this reply was for [@Jassoscared]‍ x

I haven't touched any of Tom's stuff either, it's all hanging in the wardrobe,  his drawers are still full, wallet and glasses in their usual place,  cant bear it yet. A couple of people have suggested sorting his stuff out too but I said No, I'm not ready for that.  I think its an individual thing anyway and that's ok. The only  thing I have "borrowed" is his keys when I couldnt find mine, and that felt bad enough.  Tom started a private treatment in dec which they were confident would give him another 1-3 years, so we were absolutely gobsmacked when he was investigated in January for terrible stomach pain (which they kept saying was constipation, if only) and were told "sorry, the cancer has spread into the lining around your stomach organs, cant do anything more, you have about 4-6 weeks. We already knew he was terminal,  but we didn't think THAT terminal! It's a terrible shock, I'm still finding it hard to believe but I know it's true. I'm struggling with getting past the "why him" stage. We had a big gap between being told he had cancer and it was 'serious', to actually seeing the oncologist and being told how serious! I think it was 6 weeks before he started palliative chemo. Silly us naively thought that was because it was fixable and the wait time didnt matter much...terrible now when I look back....and we were so ill-informed about it all. He carried on struggling into work for another few weeks because we didnt know just how sick he was. I get tired of people telling me "I don't know how you cope with it all,  I couldn't!"  Well we didnt exactly volunteer for this! We had no choice! Last year when my daughter turned 8 and cut her birthday cake and 'made a wish' I know her wish was that her Dad would get better, heartbreaking for all of us that that simple wish for her Dad 'to live' that others take completely for granted couldn't come true for us...

Plebbs don’t take this the wrong way but I smiled when you took your Toms keys and felt awful doing it . It’s an unwanted experience what’s been given to us when we meet our soul mates we plan for the short term future where we live , work , friends and children if we are blessed to have them. But we didn’t plan this awful time in our lives. I feel awful saying to my daughter I’m doing this or going to do this to my bedroom, my !!! Bedroom is that what is happening to me , we has now become I . I’ve sussed the genuine people out there who are sincere and the ones who don’t know how to talk to a widow!! The cliche “ remember you know where I am if you need anything “ yeh right your just saying that because you don’t know what to say to me . Be honest like me when a colleague said to me my wife died early last year, I just looked and said I don’t know what to say mate , I didn’t be over dramatic and promise him that I was his saviour like some I have spoken to. I may sound angry and bitter but don’t pretend to be the answer to my woes , see my anger is ever present . When I picked up Andreas personal things from the hospice Andreas pyjamas were amongst the things with her vomit on , that’s what I didn’t need to see and smell, brought back the awful memories of Andrea vomiting that horrible brown stuff during her last days . Plebbs I put too much faith in the specialists believing that things were going to be tough but with chemo etc that there might be a bit of future, but when I look back they knew from January that there was no hope WHY didn’t they just tell us instead of biopsies and false hope telling us that there wasn’t any tumours on your ovaries so we can’t treat you at this hospital because that’s our field of treatment so we are referring you back to your area .. bye sorry .Dammned angry so sad xx

Plebbs don’t take this the wrong way but I smiled when you took your Toms keys and felt awful doing it . It’s an unwanted experience what’s been given to us when we meet our soul mates we plan for the short term future where we live , work , friends and children if we are blessed to have them. But we didn’t plan this awful time in our lives. I feel awful saying to my daughter I’m doing this or going to do this to my bedroom, my !!! Bedroom is that what is happening to me , we has now become I . I’ve sussed the genuine people out there who are sincere and the ones who don’t know how to talk to a widow!! The cliche “ remember you know where I am if you need anything “ yeh right your just saying that because you don’t know what to say to me . Be honest like me when a colleague said to me my wife died early last year, I just looked and said I don’t know what to say mate , I didn’t be over dramatic and promise him that I was his saviour like some I have spoken to. I may sound angry and bitter but don’t pretend to be the answer to my woes , see my anger is ever present . When I picked up Andreas personal things from the hospice Andreas pyjamas were amongst the things with her vomit on , that’s what I didn’t need to see and smell, brought back the awful memories of Andrea vomiting that horrible brown stuff during her last days . Plebbs I put too much faith in the specialists believing that things were going to be tough but with chemo etc that there might be a bit of future, but when I look back they knew from January that there was no hope WHY didn’t they just tell us instead of biopsies and false hope telling us that there wasn’t any tumours on your ovaries so we can’t treat you at this hospital because that’s our field of treatment so we are referring you back to your area .. bye sorry .Dammned angry so sad xx

looking back now I can see that the young Dr we saw first who told us about the liver lesions would have known it was cancer and exactly what having cancer in your liver actually means...but we were so naive and noone explained it to us....weeks later the oncologist hit us with the news that without treatment he had about 4 months to live- we thought she had made a mistake and must've meant four years but she didn't,  I was in so much shock...I remember bending over double in the chair feeling like I was going to faint  or vomit, and the shock mirrored on my husband's face.. it was just too cruel. One of the first things he said was "I might not be around to see my girls grow up". And now he isn't.  I feel so cheated of everything. ..his life, my girls having a Dad,  our future and the dreams we had of what we planned. ..cancer is an evil thief as far as I'm concerned. ..nothing good comes out of it...even wasps help break down rotten fruit and dispose of it...but cancer?  just sweeps in bringing misery and intense loss in our lives and doesn't die till it steals our loves ones away with it...

Plebbs ,my loss has just started but yours has continued oh my friend x my anger is perhaps misplaced but hey the specialists we dealt with were so insensitive just another face with cancer . But hang on here!! We are going out of here with a death sentence served on us , have a bit more about yourself. Am I bitter too bloody right I am , who do I take it out on them or do I get on with it. My thoughts and anger ahhhh , getting off track here love those who deserve it, sod the rest, plebbs take care of your brood , which is obvious you do xx , keep in touch sister, we have fire in our bellies,so keep out of our way and as My Andrea said I’m coming after you and I’m bringing Hell with me xx love to all xx

Our oncologist, young lady who should know better, had the cheek to start packing her stuff up to make a fast exit after delivering her bombshell of "4 months" !  I said: "hang on a minute,  I have some questions!", she was not happy,  said she had a meeting to get to! Tom (who was too nice for his own good sometimes, unlike her!), said later "I was a bit embarrassed when you said that,  you could tell she didn't want to be there"! Too bad!  you can't just drop something like that on someone and then rush out the room, how rude! These drs might be clever in some ways but pretty insensitive in others!  this is my husband and father of my children we are discussing,  not the family dog!

Plebbs your determination to get questions answered is admirable, why do they think that giving out kind of answer is fine....!! Andrea said to me Ray when we speak to hospital don’t be abrupt.. I’d say when we came away from an appointment was I ok and she would say fine x But our Dr who at first told Andrea that loss of appetite and fatigue was IBS and to change her diet, when Andrea went back and said I’m no better the Dr said oh erm it might be another dietary problem. Still no better so Andrea went back to the surgery by pure chance our Dr was on leave so Andrea so another Dr who said Andrea I think I’ll take some more bloods and run another test to rule out what I hope it isn’t. The next day the Dr was at house .. Andrea I’ve hurried the test results back to me , I’m referring you to have immediate scans if you haven’t had an appointment in 5 days ring my secretary straight away that was December last year .. Well my dear Andrea that was the start of a very short and painful path till 3rd of April xxx miss you every minute of my waking day xx. Plebbs and the rest of the grieving gang love to all xxxx I’ll post again soon xxx