Nobody really knows how they will react to a cancer diagnosis. You may think you know but believe me you don’t. I had thought about this for many reasons, family cancer history, David’s family, brain tumors and having had friends who were given this awful news. I thought I knew how I would react but I was wrong. When we were told a year ago, that David’s biopsy showed cancer, he was great, very pragmatic, strong and unfaltering. Tony my brother has accepted his lot with such courage I am so proud to be his sister. In both cases these men in my life can also still manage to have a sense of humour.
I had a very close friend, Mo, a lady who was, like me, fond of the glamorous things in life, loved a bit of colour and sparkle. She was very young in mind but a few years older than me. She enjoyed her glass of wine and insisted on walking into town each day right up until 1 week before her death. I remember one day when I had driven the 2 hours to see her, I was unwell and in a lot of pain. But Mo was dying. She wanted to talk about that and I am ashamed to say, I was very close to tears. I was supposed to be supporting her and I was the one nearly crying. She held my hand and said it was okay. It wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay. I knew how much I would miss her and so did she but she assured me that although her time was close, she wasn’t in pain and didn’t feel ill. She was more concerned about me. The first I knew about her cancer was after I had moved offices and was closing up one day, she appeared in the reception area, looking so childlike. When asked what was wrong, she spoke very softly and said. ‘Oh Carol Ann, I have cancer’. I took her into my room and she sobbed as we held each other and this was a rare occasion when I was in tears. Then, very quickly, she said, ‘that’s enough of that. No more tears’. I never saw her cry again, complain or moan, even on the day before her death when I visited and gave her Christmas gift, Christmas Eve, her birthday a few years ago. The last time I saw her. Yes the diagnosis was hard and brought fear and tears, but after that she faced everything as the strong, brave lady that she was. I loved and admired her so much.
Would I be that brave? I would think. Yes of course I would. After life’s adversities, sent to me over the years, of course I would be the same. Strong, brave and full of courage. A few years before after suffering serious headaches for a long time, I was sent for CT brain scan. Visiting the surgery for the results, I was taken into the consulting room and my GP asked the nurse and the receptionist, a friend of mine, to come in as well. This was not normal practice and alarmed me. ‘You have a mass in the centre of your brain’, the words came from my softly spoken GP John. I will need to have more tests done he told me. Did I panic? No. Did I freak-out? No. Was I scared? No. I stood up and said I would see them all after the tests. I went home and found David and my daughter Marie, playing with the ponies and my heart broke. How could I tell them? What would they do if I died? I know I am not indispensable but I also knew how close we were, a very small family unit and everything that happened affected us all. I said nothing for 10 days. After more tests it was found to be an Arachnoid cyst.
So I knew how I would face a cancer diagnosis didn’t I. How wrong was I! I had coped with my own fear of cancer hadn’t I?
So why was it, that when David was diagnosed with PC I almost fell apart? All the family stuff over the previous 3 years? Yes. My own health issues at that time, worried I might not be well enough to look after him? Yes. But mostly because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. I knew nothing about this dreadful illness. Never heard of it until our doctor did a routine blood test, David’s first PSA. I have been around many people with cancer, my eldest sister, my best friend, years ago my young sister-in-law and now my brother. I had always been strong enough to ‘hold them’ when they talked of the inevitable. When they talked about it getting worse, or even their dying. I never gave in to my own fears, always managed, except for the blip I have just told you about with Mo. With others, I felt their fear, their sadness and along with them, our joint helplessness, but this was different. David was my life, my rock and the thought of losing him was terrifying. After the diagnose I began reading about this disease that had barged into our beautiful lives and caused chaos. At first I only read doom and gloom. Only saw the negative and that terrified me beyond words.
With my own diagnosis of a ‘mass’, I instantly thought, mass, tumor, dead. But calmly walked out of the surgery. I coped. I had been working for a while by this time and used to tell my clients who had suffered all kinds of nasties in their lives, to look back at those times and remind themselves that they survived worse that the things they are going through now. I did that for myself back then.
This past week I have read a great many people criticising us for how we react on diagnosis of PC in our men. How we cope or don’t cope during treatment. Not how our husband and partners cope but how it is affecting us as wives and partners. People don’t seem to be able to understand why we, the wives etc are affected at all.I have written in the past about the differences in this cancer with a little ‘c’ and others. I have heard of ladies being told to ‘pull themselves together’. ’It isn’t you who has this disease it is your man’. We know that. We don’t need to be told. PC affects us as wives and partners as much as our men but in a different way. We may also discover that the man we married may be changing, becoming different in ways and that in itself at first is a shock. Especially those men who have Hormone treatment, wives are saying they change and sometimes become different people. Hormones can do that but sometimes it can revert after treatment ends. That doesn’t help the woman who is struggling to understand the man she married who is behaving in ways he never has before. I have heard other partners saying that no matter what, they must ‘stick it out’, making them feel guilty, especially if they are thinking of leaving their husband. People can sometimes sound harsh, saying it is wrong, wrong to even think of ending a relationship, that she must stick it out no matter what. Don’t you think she feels bad enough?!
The only people who should comment, have the right to comment are those who have been or are, going through this journey themselves. It is so easy to judge. So easy to say things that hurt even when not meant to hurt. Such as, ‘It’s not you who has PC, why are you feeling sad, scared or angry?” ‘You are not ill why are acting as though you are?’ I have also heard ‘No-one dies from PC’. Really??
As a wife of a PC sufferer, my life has changed. Going through the past year and a half, thinking of what the future may bring, takes its toll on a relationship. It had been hit hard in the previous years and that continued during David’s surgery and after , the onslaught by family. David having cancer made no difference to that. Yes PC affects the man physically and sometimes psychologically and emotionally. But let’s not forget how it can affect those close to them. Wives and partners especially. I have changed. I know that, some bits for the better and some not so. I became so scared that I wasn’t functioning as Carol Ann. I didn’t even recognize her in me. But thankfully, it has now passed. I am back and although our life will never be the same it is still more than good. I am one of the lucky ones, I know and appreciate that.One thing I learned in my ‘fight’ is that those around me, who love me are the only really important people in my life. They are the ones I need to concentrate on and look after. Oh, and also look after Me. The past is over an gone and although I miss my daughter and my grandchildren so much, wanting what I can’t have is futile and takes so much energy that I need for my life to become better.I can’t change things, can’t rub out the lies spread about me but I know the truth and so do the people who matter.This is my life and I will live it, cancer with a little ‘c’ permitting, in the truth and in my own way, hurting no one. Loving many.
So please don’t criticize how others deal with things on this journey and in life in general, we all deal with things differently. Some cry buckets, some don’t socialize anymore. Some, like me, write it on here and vent. Just because someone says very little about their husband’s illness doesn’t mean they are not struggling. We all do it differently, in our own way. If you read about a group member not behaving the way you would, please if you have nothing constructive or kind to say, then say nothing. Don’t criticise when you don’t understand or don’t have the facts. Good rule in life in general. Don’t judge unless you have been there and walked in their shoes. Show empathy. Look at the cards life has dealt that person and try to see how it might feel for them. Kindness costs nothing and will hurt no one.
Sometimes when I am reading social media, especially the groups on PC. I wonder how we get through the adversities life throws at us. How some people have so much to deal with but still manage to live their lives. As I have said before, we see on here, what the member tells us, but they don’t always tell it all. I have several p.m.’s from friends telling me the background to their lives before PC. The things that were happening to them at the same time as they are struggling with this awful scary illness in their husbands. I have said before cancer does not come in isolation, it doesn’t think, ‘Oh that person has nothing much to deal with I‘ll hit them’. It comes along with and at the same time, as we are fighting for survival of another kind. Or is that just me?
The year before David’s diagnosis life threw everything at us as a family. Family Death. Estrangement. Baby loss. Animal loss and most of all Fear with a capital F. Along with the diagnosis of PC, we had and still have a little dog with cancer, my brother having terminal cancer, my own ill-health and more. Not to mention the theft of my publishing contract by my sister and eldest daughter and the rest of the pain they have inflicted on us. Horrible, horrible years. Cancer didn’t wait until life was better, it didn’t think, ‘oh they have had their share of worry and fear, won’t go there’. No of course not. We all have other things to cope with when it hits.
Fear has been my constant, throughout my life but meeting David had seen it off. Made me happier than I had ever thought possible and suddenly that was threatened by this dreaded of diseases.
I look back now and wonder that I am still in-tact. Not singing my own praises, nothing like that but I do wonder. At the beginning of this Journey, I wasn’t really coping, as you will see reading back through my blog. I was muddling through and sharing my true feelings here on this page. Not to family. Not to David, but on here and I thank everyone who has read and commented. You have all helped and supported me when I needed it most.
During my life I never had anyone ‘cope’ for me as most of us don’t. Like others, I have fought through hardships, pain, abuse, sorrow and fear. And do you know what? I am still here.
The difference is that now I am not fighting. I am not struggling. I am living. My life, my way, full of love, honesty, truth and humour. PC taught me that life can change in a flash. One small biopsy result can turn your life on its head. If you are not careful, like me you risk losing it, losing you on this horrid journey.
But you won’t and neither will I.
We will, as Elizabeth says, no matter what. ‘Put one foot before another’ and get on with it. In the case of PC. For the man in our life, for our relationship and for our sanity, we need to take care of ourselves. Then we can get on with the task in hand. Life.
I made an attempt yesterday, not an Olive branch but reached out to the daughter I used to have, my eldest Lisa. I gave her a chance to put things right, not with me as she has made that clear she doesn’t want me as her Mum, but for my brother Tony who as you know has limited time left. I know the plan conjured up by my sister and daughter and it is time they owned their mistakes, if for no other reason than to give my brother his peace of mind and restore his faith in family. I think it was declined. I can do no more.
Life is tough guys. Sometimes tougher for some than others. Let’s all do our bit to make it as easy and full of love for family friends and others, as is humanly possible.
Thank you for reading x
carolannwright 