My young wife is dying

tucson_bandit · New User Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 2

Its been 12 years. She first got cancer in her leg at 19, they said it was benign. It came back in the same spot 7 years later, she had a prosthetic leg put in. She kept fighting, living life, became a doctor, she was strong.

The cancer came back again 6 months ago. but this time it had spread to her face, her spine, her leg again, her skull base. She is only 32 years old, its not fair. Her life is being slowly taken from her, she no longer has her period. Her right leg hardly works, she is spaced out and her mind absent from pain medication. She breathes heavy and infrequent, she is dying. Her eyes don't glow anymore, she falls asleep in mid conversation.

She had dreams, she had found herself in her career and know she has no hope. I will be left alone on the earth for 50 years to comtemplate what could have been, to wallow in my aganoy and loss. Hers will be a life wasted.

when do we stop? When do we stop torturing her with 'treatments'? At some point I will have to take her life from her to save any dignity she has left. she has already asked me to.

Why is this happening to us? We are young, we have so much to do that will never be done. My wife is dying and so am I. I don't want to hear words of suport or hope, its over. There is no god, there is nothing but cruel reality and harshness of luck and nature. We never had a chance, what a sad doomed life we have led.

It was not always like that. I met her and she was full of energy, wild and untamed. She woke up at 3AM to ride horses, she threatened her father that she would become a stripper, she did what she wanted, she was full of young idealistic energy and I loved her. Even after she was diagnosed, for years she kept on, went to college and then medical school. nothing could stop her. She became a hospice doctor, and now she will become a patient. Her once brilliant eyes and bouncing step repalced with the dull stare of pain and defeat, her body ripped open and ravaged by surgeons knives. She is not even a woman anymore, she can not convieve. If most women miss their cycle it means they are full of life, they are pregnant. For my wife it means her body is dying, she only wants to sleep and have it be over..all the pain and torture and fear.

My life is over at 33, 60 years of lonliness and despair await me. Will I even remember her touch, her smell the way she spoke in 60 years? Will there be anything left? What an empty sad existance for us, so tragic and filled with blackness and lonliness and misery.

nothing will ever be good or happy again for us, the best years of or life are far behind..if only we had known it at the time. What a waste to slowly die for 12 years while still a teenager. What a torturous tragedy, god is evil if he exists at all. And he better hope he does not, or that I am immortal.

MarkS · Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:18 am Post subject: Re: My young wife is dying

Tucson, words are too inadequate to explain how sorry I am for you and your beautiful wife. The way you describe her it's easy to see how you love her so much.
@#$%&*?! cancer!
_________________
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

KNASH · Regular Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Posts: 14

i will keep you in my thoughts and prayers tucson. my mother has stage iv lung cancer. she has just recently been diagnosed. i cherish every waking moment that we have together. i hope for the best and prepare for the worst. if there is a such thing a preparing. she is my best friend. my son 15 and daughter 8 adore her. i find it so hard to even get up in the mornings. i'm totally devastated

the power of prayers heals all wounds.

brainman · Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:17 am Post subject: My heart goes out to you!

Dear Tucson, I do not know what to say...

You ask powerful, unanswerable questions. Cancer is not fair.

I will be remembering you and your wife in the days ahead. Please check back in from time to time. You wrote so eloquently that I could "feel" your love for your wife.

Jim
_________________
Jim
Site Administrator and long-term cancer survivor
1992 Astrocytoma grade 2, left motor strip
2005 Recurrence this time said to be an Oligodendoglioma grade 3, same location.
My Story Part 1: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=7350
My Story Part 2: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8029
Blog http://jimhawkinsport.blogspot.com/

Archangel · New User Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 2

Tucson

One day my sister called, she stood up and her leg just snapped. Despite a mastectomy and chemo, the breast cancer had spread to her bones. They put a rod in and said she could walk, but she never did again. She said she wanted to die on the beach in Hawaii, so I got her into a hospice and watched her waste away to 78 pounds. At the end she was comatose, gasping for air. Yes, I turned off the oxygen. Why are dying animals treated more humanely than human beings?

She died at 40 without a husband or children. I never thought her life was wasted. She was a nurse, a prostitute, a model and a musician. She was the craziest woman I have ever known, and the greatest inspiration in my life. Mary will always be with me, daring me to live no matter how much it hurts. It seems your wife lived courageously. Would she want you to do the same?

The ten years I spent hating God just made living an endurance contest. Maybe you can find a way back volunteering at the hospice she believed in. If you ask her, some day she will come to you in a dream, and it will be OK.

brainman · Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:59 pm Post subject: Re: My young wife is dying

Archangel, the last person to post to this thread was me in December 2005!!!

I can split it off from this thread and create a new one if you would like.
_________________
Jim
Site Administrator and long-term cancer survivor
1992 Astrocytoma grade 2, left motor strip
2005 Recurrence this time said to be an Oligodendoglioma grade 3, same location.
My Story Part 1: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=7350
My Story Part 2: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8029
Blog http://jimhawkinsport.blogspot.com/

Archangel · New User Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 2

Sorry, Brainman. I got there on a google search and didn't even look at the date. I'm sure Tucson's wife is gone now, so I'll leave it up to you: You can forward it to him if you think it's appropriate, or just go ahead and delete it.

Thanks,
Archangel

brainman · Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:19 pm Post subject: Re: My young wife is dying

Wow, archangel, I am glad a google search helped you find this thread. No apologies necessary. You sound like a very caring and thoughtful individual and regardless of who reads your post it will bring comfort to know someone else cares.

I will just leave this thread intact.
_________________
Jim
Site Administrator and long-term cancer survivor
1992 Astrocytoma grade 2, left motor strip
2005 Recurrence this time said to be an Oligodendoglioma grade 3, same location.
My Story Part 1: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=7350
My Story Part 2: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8029
Blog http://jimhawkinsport.blogspot.com/

tucson_bandit · New User Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 2

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses to my original posting. I really like that this forum sent me an email notifying me of a response to this thread I wrote 1.5 years ago.

Archangel, your response had me question my feelings of bitterness and and what I may have characterized as a wasted pair of lives in my first post. It is not honoring my wife or her ideals to disparage her life in such a way, and I work hard to try and take the good and focus on it instead of the despair and negativity i tend to fight with all of the time.

sometimes, however, I feel as if the sadness I feel is all I will have left of her at some point- and to give it up means losing the last connection I might have with my wife, even if it is a negative one.

Despite what I wrote in dec. 2005, my wife is in fact still living. It was a truly awful and seemingly hopeless situation in dec. 2005- and in fact it is only a little bit better today. Somedays worse than others, it has been quite a tiring and wild undulation of emotions- from hope to despair and back again in short periods of time.

She had an alternative cancer treatment performed in Germany from dec. 2005 until summer 2006 and it caused near 100% remission. When we returned to the united States in Aug. 2006, it was not 3 months later that her cancer again returned. And so it was back to Germany this last may (2007). She is still in Germany, and will stay until mid sept. I believe. it appears the treatment might be able to shrink the cancer, but does nothing to keep it at bay. And so a new plan has arisen- combining the treatment in germany with future oral trial drugs meant to stave off a re-occurrence if the cancer can be beaten back once again.

Meanwhile I did not make the trip over this time, not yet anyway. Because of our financial situation and health insurance situation I could not leave my job this time. Her mother is with her, and at times her sisters and father. I will go to pick her up, whenever that might be.

I realize that in many, many ways we are very fortunate and I am so lucky she is still with me. I do worry that she is being somewhat 'tortured' at times, put through many painful, experimental treatments; her body abused by cancer and attempts to defeat it.

In some ways thew low grade of her cancer is a blessing, in some ways it is scary to think how this might end. I know that others would kill to have this much more time with their loved ones though, and my self absorbed whining my bother them and seem ungrateful.

I understand that, and I am sorry if I ever came across that way. I continued to be amazed at how the story of our lives continues with twists and turns where I least expect it.

thank you all for your kind words, even if I did not initially respond, they meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to me to release my feelings of sadness in my original letter.

Archangel, your sister sounds like a beautiful and strong woman. I really admire people like her who are able to live their life with such bravery and independence.

Maybe that is one of the 'good' things that might be taken from having such a horrible disease. Perhaps it allows for an increased ability to live life apart from societies expectations, with a special ability to shrug of criticism and conformity.

But it also sounds as if your sister, like my wife, had this special ability before diagnosis. Maybe the courage came from a body who knew its own fate and what was in store. Whatever the case we all could learn to live from these types of people, it is a bit sad that sometimes it might take death to teach us how to live. I don't know.

Thank you all for your kind words. the mean a lot to me.

TB

Richard Day Gore · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:19 am Post subject: Re: My young wife is dying

Archangel, your post is worth printing and saving--there's such courage and honesty and feeling in it. Thanks so much for sharing your feelings and experiences with us.
Love and prayers to your wife and family and yourself,
Richard Day Gore
_________________
Richard Day Gore

brainman · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:46 pm Post subject: Re: My young wife is dying

TB, thank you for the update about your wife! I am so sorry for all the suffering she is having. Hopefully, the two of your are also able to find joy during this time. My thoughts and prayers go with you.
_________________
Jim
Site Administrator and long-term cancer survivor
1992 Astrocytoma grade 2, left motor strip
2005 Recurrence this time said to be an Oligodendoglioma grade 3, same location.
My Story Part 1: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=7350
My Story Part 2: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=8029
Blog http://jimhawkinsport.blogspot.com/

igt123 · Regular Joined: 21 Jul 2007 Posts: 12

TC - I applaud you and your wifes resolve to beat this monster. It's quite hearting to know that there is hope after reading your first post. Very insperational. I hope for the best and I hope you will share both the good and the bad. I know that sounds oxymoronic but I'm not he best with words. All the best to the both of you. I hope she obtains complete and permanent remmision. This insideous disease is knocking the crap out our family and I'm glad people like you are around to share.

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