The not happy side of Care Giving.

I had an interesting talk with my stepdaugher...oh hell, let's just say she is my daughter.  For all the help and support I've gotten over the years she is as close to a biological child as I could get.

Sometimes I wonder how I'd get through things without her.  I know I can call her and blow steam off.

Last night we discussed how dramatically different Rich will be with her or the nurses and staff at the UW and at the VA.

He charms their pants off.  Smiles, agrees to what they tell him, jokes around and stops to talk at length with other veterans.  All in all what I see in public is a well rounded happy person who is dealing with cancer of the throat.

Suddenly the tables turn when we walk in the door.  He becomes angry, frustrated, and will lash out if I ask him if he is going to 'flush' his PEG tube.  He seems to get confused and can't recall what the doctors told him and WHY they told him these things.

I pull out the handy voice recorder and offer to play it back for him and he gets angry again.  
He tells me I'm a nag. He makes a 'face' at me and gives me the look.
Finally he just tells me to ...
just leave him alone.

I try to let things just roll off my back and try to remind myself that these are just words and that he is the one with the illness.

And then there it is, the little nag in the back of my brain that is mean.  I want to lash out and tell him off.  Let him have some of his own medicine.

Make your own bed, make your own meals, take care of chores, bills, if you know so dang much do it yourself.  If I can't do anything the right way then fine,...I quit.

But no, I don't do that.  

Somewhere there is an end and treatment will be done and there will be a road to recovery.
I always believe in hope even when it is difficult.

I hope.

And the Doctor said Cancer

No one forgets the day they have been diagnosed with Cancer.  Cancer with a capital letter as if it is so important.
Yet it is.

It changes many things that simple ugly word.

March 13th, 2015.  Friday the 13th my husband went to the VA hospital in Madison to an ENT check up for a lump on his throat and some sinus issues.

They did a CT scan.  The ENT people then did a biopsy.  They told him it was cancer but didn't know more than that.  The biopsy had to go to Pathology.

He pulled in the driveway.  I'd stayed at home to do chores after all this whole appointment was pretty routine right?

He parked the car.
He walked slowly towards me.
He shook his head slowly.  "Cancer.  They said I have cancer."

The sun was warm, it was pleasant.  I could hear the birds singing.  

No, the birds should be falling out of the sky and the clouds should rush in with a huge thunderclap and lightening.

But it didn't.  I felt shock go through my body.  And I had no words to say of comfort to my husband.  I couldn't think of a thing.  So I took his hand.

It was the 'C' word.  That awful dreadful C word.  The word that nightmares and horror stories were made of.  Those stories that showed children with no hair, people with hollow eyes, thin, sick, ...but people out there and not the person in front of me.

When the diagnosis comes like that, imagination flies and goes wild.  

And it doesn't get better because suddenly we were immersed in trying to figure out what this Cancer was.  Of course no one knew.  One of the ENT doctors assured him that he'd call as soon as they got the Pathology Report back.

So began days of waiting that felt like weeks.  A Cancer with no name.  We felt as though we were in emotional limbo and we went through our daily lives like living Zombies.  I wasn't sure what to say to comfort my husband and he wasn't sure he wanted comforting.

And so the Journey began.