Probably because I don't know how!  Give me a clue what to do. Caz

We have to be up early as we are off to James Cook to do something about his leg.   We arrive and have to walk about twenty yards away so I tell him to stand and wait whilst I get a wheelchair.  Steve the prosthetic guy gets a wheel chair and goes to get him,  he has staggered across the road and is as grey as a squirrel.   I'm furious that he tried to walk and am very cross with him.   It can wait I will tell him in private.   I am sick of his macho personality in front of others,  what if he fell, we would be in so much trouble with broken bones or facial wounds.   I refuse to go up with him, so I get a coffee and start a new Karen Rose novel.  One and a half hours of peace and quiet! !  I wheel him back to the car and tell him off for doing what he did, he thinks it funny.  How do people cope with this?  We get home and have lunch and I start taking the trees and decorations down, Christmas is officially over in more ways than one!!

We both have a bad nights sleep due to coughing and hobbling around on a leg that still doesn't fit, despite hours of our time sorting it yesterday.  I stagger out of bed at 8.45 am,  wishing I could just Bury my head in the pillow and not face the day.  Cups of tea a lecture on how bad a job has been done yesterday, I clench my teeth and tell him to go back to bed after redressing his big toe because he had stood on it during the night with his false foot!!   I have a shower and set too on the kitchen.  Just to ad to my happy life my cleaner was in a car crash on Friday and has severe whiplash, I have a sever lack of a sense of humour at the moment knowing I now have EVERYTHING to do.  He comes down mid day full of grumbles,  can he have toast and tea so he can take his medication  he asks meekly.  I think he knows I am taking the brunt of everything but what   can we do?  The world is against us and it's only the 4th January! !  Off to see nurse again, not happy with toe, what a surprise!   Bloods done wounds dressed back out into the pouring rain,  what a lovely day, it's never going to get light today.  I buy the last 4 mince pies fot ten pence in Sainsbury and we drive home, cup of tea with our bargain, beef curry for tea as trying to get protein into him. I just sit down and the phone rings,  my friend to wish me a happy new year plus the news that Bert ie (cat, not hubby) has had to be put down over Christmas, I pretend to be sympathetic but am struggling with the loss of a cat to the probable loss of a husband!!  Now have to see doctor 8.30 am. Tomorrow to see if he has another chest infection.  Somewhere in between these appointments I'm hoping to fit coffee and cake in with my best friend.   Wish me luck!

Hi Caz, 

It's nice to see you back on the forum although I'm sorry to see things have not got off to the best of starts this year.

I just wanted to wish you good luck for tomorrow. Hopefully it's good news and things will start picking up for you both soon.

Keep us posted :)

Steph, Cancer Chat Moderator

I told you the world was against us!  I set the alarm on my phone for 7. 15 am. And radio alarm for 7. 30 as back up, this one goes off so loudly I nearly have a heart attack.  Hubby is up in the nigjt coughing badly and I struggle to get back to sleep.  The next thing I know my radio alarm has woken me up.  I leap out of bed wake him up, the heating hasn't come on, so another problem to sort out.  I get washed, back in bedroom and radio presenter tells me it's twenty to seven, It's not you pillock I say, it's  twenty to eight!,  the penny drops somewhere in my tired brain,  heating comes on at 6.30, phone alarm hasn't gone off, I somehow seem to have advanced the alarm clock by one hour!  I've got to stop drinking the vodka before I go to bed!!  I crawl back into bed in my underwear and jumper and by 7.30 it's  groundhog day again.  See you tomorrow. 

It's now 8. 15 am, and we arrive at the surgery, there is black ice everywhere and it is minus 0.5 degrees.   I hang on to hubby,  one leg and black ice don't mix.  I laugh inwardly about my attempts to help.   If he went down I would be like one of those squashed hedgehogs they sell in the garden centres,  I wonder which daughter would claim me for their garden?  He has another chest infection so more medication.   Will this ever end, when will he start to feel better?   We make it home in one piece,  opticians later but time for coffee with Mary, hurrah.  When we get back home a phone call from surgery telling us the lab have not done a full blood count so another sample is required, I think we will just book a room at the doctors and move in, it's got to be easier than this!!  This week has been a long week, I can't believe it was 2017 on Monday, I feel like I've lived a year this week.  See you tomorrow. 

Hi Caz,

Just wanted to say thank you for this thread, you've given me an insight into how my wife and daughter must be feeling, my wife in particular.

Asking her how she feels will elicit the response 'fine' but I can see the physical and mental exhaustion.

And the awareness that any conversation, about anything, inevitably ends up about me, something I'm now consciously trying to avoid.

The caring seems to be much harder than the cancer a lot of the time. And there's little chance to escape from it when people are as caring as you and my wife. And our gratitude, even when expressed, is not enough compensation.

Best Regards

Taff

Dear Taff',  I'm so pleased to be of help.  My hubby tries so hard and he's the one suffering.   It's not your fault but months of treatment and illness is draining for all.  We try to keep things on an even keel and loving someone who has cancer certainly brings the for better for worse to the forefront.   We're going to say we're fine because to add to your angst would be cruel.  Sometimes we need to be left alone and escape the daily grind!!  Stay strong, everyone who loves you is there for you.  Caz x

I could undoubtedly say more but it'd end up about me in some way.

I just wanted you to know that your writing expresses clearly what caring's about and speaks to some of us with cancer as well.

Carers - special people.

Thank you Taff.

I awake at 7.30 am with a start, I've slept through the night!  I suddenly realise that I have not heard the hacking cough and trepidation fills my heart.  I creep along the landing and listen outside the door, nothing.   My mind is in a whirl, two of my close friends have found their hubby dead in bed and this has been my worst fear since reading stupid statistics that say men in their seventies with lung cancer are lucky to survive a year.  I push the door open quietly and he peeks over the covers and coughs.  That horrible hacking cough has made me smile!   Cup of tea I say,  ooh yes please, I've had a really good night,  I don't tell him my thoughts and go down stairs to make tea, the hyacinths in the kitchen have flowered and smell gorgeous,  blackbirds are hopping on the lawn and the sun is shining.   All we need now is a day of peace and I will be happy.  See you tomorrow. 

I awake at 7.30 am with a start, I've slept through the night!  I suddenly realise that I have not heard the hacking cough and trepidation fills my heart.  I creep along the landing and listen outside the door, nothing.   My mind is in a whirl, two of my close friends have found their hubby dead in bed and this has been my worst fear since reading stupid statistics that say men in their seventies with lung cancer are lucky to survive a year.  I push the door open quietly and he peeks over the covers and coughs.  That horrible hacking cough has made me smile!   Cup of tea I say,  ooh yes please, I've had a really good night,  I don't tell him my thoughts and go down stairs to make tea, the hyacinths in the kitchen have flowered and smell gorgeous,  blackbirds are hopping on the lawn and the sun is shining.   All we need now is a day of peace and I will be happy.  See you tomorrow. 

We have our peaceful day, no phone calls no going out and I do a proper roast dinner for tea which we thoroughly enjoy.  I forbid him to walk anywhere and run around after him like a little geisha girl!  His wound has opened up again due to having a bath and very thin skin.  I stick plasters all over it to help with the pressure and hopefully by tomorrow it will not hurt as much.  My daughter sends a photo of Ella at her joint birthday party in a wonder woman outfit, I wonder if they do them in grown up sizes as I could do with one!!   She has got a barbie doll house, as the parents now put ten pounds in and split the money, so Ella has £100.00 .  Gone are the days of pencil cases and colouring books!  My daughter thinks it's a lot of money and is thrifty like me when it comes to presents  she will always buy in the sale but you can't if it's money she says..  We go back to the surgery and all blood counts are border line low, so we have to wait for next lot to come back to decide on medication to help, at least he doesn't have to get a blood transfusion.   The nurse says I'm doing a good job and will put her out of a job,  I do hope not I say, it was never my aim to be one!! Back home I lug all the paraphernalia into the house and hubby starts sounding his horn, I ignore him as sometimes he hits his knee on the horn, I stay in the house and he beeps again, annoyed I go out and shout at him, you've  locked me in the car he says, oh well best laid plans and all that! !

Well we have had a horrible night.  I was hoping that the cough had subsided, I should have known better.   I had such a busy day yesterday,  catching up with housework as a new cleaner arrives (my usual one has been in a car crash) so I can't leave her as she has never been before.   The house is like a Chinese laundry and it's so cold outside I can't even hang them up or they would freeze.  By 1.45 pm we go to the tip which is packed so I have to carry everything the full length as needless to say the one we want is right at the other end.  Back into town to pay paper bill, run back to car and off to surgery.   Finally home by 2.4pm a and I realise I've had nothing to eat!  So by ten O'clock I go to bed to read.  By two am. The coughing seeps into my brain and I know he's suffering.  I put my dressing gown on and pad along the landing,  he's hurt his toe again by getting it caught under the base of the bed and the nurse has bound it too tightly.   I go down and make a cup of  tea, some paracetamol  (two for me), re dress his toe, rub some more vick on his chest and he snuggles down.  I go back to bed, frozen and my mind in a whirl, is the tumour pressing on his wind pipe again?  I toss and turn and have no idea when I fell asleep.   I am going to ring our Mc Millan nurse in the morning to see when we get a scan, we have been left in limbo and I'm struggling to cope with the uncertainty.   

It's 12.30 dinner time and I am literally on the edge of tears, which is not like me.  I have been awake in the night again,  cough, cough, cough. The alarm goes off at seven am. It's  cold,  wet and miserable and we set off in all the heavy morning traffic, I don't normally feel car sick but today I do.  We arrive at James Cook and I threaten him not to move whilst I get a wheelchair.   I have a book handy and I will not hesitate to use it around his head if he does.  Another two hours sitting in a waiting room hell of legless people and we are back out into the rain,  wheel chair returned and I'm soaking wet.  We get home and he's trod on his toe again, so I run up and down stairs to get plasters,  the new ones get stuck to my thumbs and after three a attempts I revert to the old ones, everything is so difficult.   I feel sorry for myself as my plan was to have a day at the Metro center with Mary, but his comfort comes first.  I've missed zumba again and feel unfit and neglected.  The Mc Millan nurse hasn't rung me back so I'm annoyed  at the lack of communication.   I am going to sit and slob out on the sofa and watch rubbish TV and hope that tomorrow is a better day!

Slobbing has to be done sometimes!

A large glass of red wine has helped! I'm now a warm dry slob

Good for you! I’ve got the joys of talking to a double glazing guy shortly, my back door isn’t very well and needs replacing! My cup runeth over!

As do all of ours!!  He's just told me they've cocked it up again, stuck pie in oven and locked myself in the front room

Ooh, pie!

It's 10.30 pm and after steak and ale pie, a large glass of wine and a vodka and coke  (drink, not drugs!)  I feel a lot more chilled out.  Tomorrow is another day, I know I have to live it and I need to get my happy equilibrium back on track. See you tomorrow. 

Up again at 4.0 am he tells me to go back to bed.   It's pointless as he's coughing so I can't sleep.  Cup of tea and when he gets to the bottom of the cup the tea bag has split and he spits it all over the bed, I was thinking of buying new bedding so that solves that problem.   We sleep til 9. 00 am and he rings Steve, back again tomorrow.   Were you meeting Mary he asks, well I was,  it's not important though he says looking at me, I'm too tired to argue!  No news from our dedicated Mc Millan nurses so I call again, ones on permanent leave until March, the other February.   So I call the Oncologist secretary.   She'll call me back.   Hubby comes down in a foul mood and I try to explain what I have done,he loses his rag straight away, why am I interfering,  it's all sorted out. I tell him to shut up and listen so instead I get the glare!!  The phone rings it's my cousin so I take  off into the front room and have a girly chat and moan about the situation.  Back in kitchen he tells me he's fed up with this now, really I needed that pointing out like a hole in the head.  Phone rings again, he apparently had a scan booked for the 18th December and was put down as a no show.  We didn't show because we never received the appointment!   So now the ball is back in our court,  wait for scan appointment,  ring  secretary and she'll arrange the Oncologist.   So we are now further away than ever, my life is hell at the moment and I can't see it getting better.   See you tomorrow.