I have often referred to my husband as my rock. He is. He is like a mountain, strong, sometimes unrelenting but I know now, even mountains can loose parts of what makes them strong. Maybe a slither of rock will fall, sometimes huge landslides change the whole of its appearance but it is still a mountain. Still beautiful and mighty and still brings wonder in its new appearance. That’s my David. Solid as a rock, Strong and amazing like a mountain but now slightly different after his own ‘landslides’.
Over most of my life, I was always as strong. I had to be. But over the past few years I have, at times, been like a tiny piece of moss clinging to the rocks, to the mountain. I clung like my life depended on it. It did. I drew strength from David and he says, he drew strength from me. I hadn’t been aware of that until today. Not aware that he needed strength ,that is a revelation. Over this past year we have both been broken by heartache and grief. Me more so than him. He has always been at my side, holding me when I cried, comforting me when I couldn’t take anymore and hugging all my pain away. This past year has brought back fear and sadness. With family betrayals, lies being spread from someone who has had no part in our lives for more than 40 years. Her lies were not questioned because she is an expert. Knows no other way to be, but lie and hurt. Although this nearly brought me to my knees, I have not acted on my feelings. After tomorrow, maybe with hopefully renewed strength, I will. Building bridges perhaps.I had and have more important things now and back then to focus on.
From March onwards the things happening to me personally, had to be pushed aside as much as they could be. David’s cancer scare and then our daughter’s wedding had to take priority. We made a pact, not to focus on the health issues and make her day the best wedding possible. The hurts and pain had already done their damage and on her wedding day, the strength it had taken to try to ignore every attempt to bring me down, was weakened and I was very unwell. But I was there.
From August last year, after the biopsy confirmed cancer, I realised that my rock, my mountain was not as impenetrable as I had thought. It was time for me to become the rock, the mountain. The strong, unmovable, reliable force and withstand any attempt at being weakened. My turn to be strong for him.
Was it easy? No.
Did I mind? No.
Did I feel strong? No.
After surgery on 23rd February, I watched the man I love, the strong fit active man become someone who at times seemed like a stranger. Not in how he acted towards me but how he was around the house. Not talking very much where we had always chatted a lot. Looking slightly scared and so grey. His skin looked so pale and the frailty after the operation was scary. He lost weight and looked like an older version of the man I love.
David has always looked after me, I have possibly said before. Breakfast in bed for the past 30 years, started because early in our marriage,I was very unwell and just carried on. He did most of the housework for the same reason and always liked to be ‘on the go’. If anything around the house or ‘the farm’ broke, he would fix it.
It was suddenly my turn and yes, it came as a bit of a shock. Yes I gave him breakfast in bed for the five weeks after the operation. I did all the housework, wouldn’t let him lift a finger but because of my own health problems I struggled. But the hardest struggle was that I couldn’t ‘fix’ him. I couldn’t make this better. I had always been the one in the family to kiss and make it better and boy how I needed that skill now. But it was missing. I felt helpless beyond description.
I was angry and still am at times. I was scared, afraid for his future, for our future. But most of all, watching my strong rock so weak and down, I felt a great sadness.
Some days, although David is recovering well, I worry if all the cancer is gone. Some days I can’t let myself do that. But tomorrow, Friday 7th April, we will know.
Do I want to know the results? Not sure. Yes if they are good. No if they are not. I have been so low this week, David is again the strong one, the rock to my moss. I worry that I will fall apart if the results are bad. I know I can’t and most of the time, I tell myself that I won’t. I remind myself of the many times in life, I have felt I wouldn’t cope. That I couldn’t take anymore and have taken more, all of it. So I will this time but that doesn’t stop me being scared.
I know it’s not about me. I know that’s what people who haven’t been in my shoes and the shoes of every other partner of a PC sufferer would say. David has the cancer with a little ‘c’. I don’t. But the whole reason for this blog, is to tell, that it is about me! It affects the man I love. It changed the man I love. Yes he had the surgery and will have anything else he may need but the whole nasty ‘c’ word affects us both. How can it not?
He has changed, we have changed we had no choice. Our whole relationship and dynamics have changed but…. some of this is good. We have also learned to laugh about things and I have used words I would never have used before in this post operation period of PC.
But, I want once again, to shout it from the rooftops, ‘it’s not fair! I want life before last year. Before the nasties. Before the betrayals. Before PC. I want my man back as my rock, fit and well. I want cancer not to have touched my family, my husband, my brother but it has.
Tomorrow is another day the song says. I sometimes wish it wouldn’t come but it will. We will make the long drive to Swansea and see ‘the man’. Will it be good news? Will my man need more treatment? Will we cope? I don’t know the answers to the first 2 questions but I know the answer to the 3rd. Yes we will cope. We have to . I have to. We have no choice.
My rock is still as wonderful, if slightly changed. I still admire him more than any man I have ever known, more so now after watching how he has coped. He may be different and I know I have changed but something that hasn’t and won’t, is our love .
Love conquers all they say. Tomorrow like today,I will be as scared as I have been on and off this journey I never chose to travel. David is almost gung ho about the results, whilst I am fighting off this huge wave of fear that threatens to engulf me.I will try my hardest to be strong for David and I know his pragmatism will help us both.So Friday, bring it on.We will be ready for you. ( I hope).
Thankyou for reading x
carolannwright 