In last weeks blog I was trying to say how the events of the past few years have taken their toll. How PC and family stuff has left legacies that are hard to shift. I had got into a kind of habit of worrying, being scared and now, even though I am overjoyed at David’s recovery, I can’t quite relax and feel safe in the moment. Disease can do this. Bullying can do this. Ill-health can do this so I am not really surprised at how I feel, having had all three. Not surprised but concerned.
I know only too well that PC and other cancers have and are, taking loved ones away. My beloved brother, is as we speak, fighting hard to stay with us, fighting lung cancer with all his might. I know ladies on here are, suffering pre-emptive grief, knowing the man they love will not win this horrid fight. Maybe that is part of my problem, thinking of my brother’s imminent departure and feeling the grief already. I don’t know. My heart goes out to all of you in this position today and those who have sadly been there. I won’t insult those whose husbands or partners are struggling or who have lost their men to PC, and say I know how you feel. Thankfully, I don’t. But I do know the terror of the early days, post diagnosis, when the fear took me almost to breaking point. David is my life, apart from my daughter, he is all I have. We don’t have extended family now, many have died, some, have for selfish reasons, turned their backs on us. So David is my all. Losing him would have sent me over the edge I am sure. Writing my story on here, with all its seemingly self indulgence, is my way of processing the things that scare me, those that I can’t make sense of and those that I want to tell others about so that they don’t feel alone in their own struggles. Nothing I write on here is ever meant to demean or belittle other struggles that the reader might have. I never write to hurt anyone who might be reading my blog, on any of the groups I belong to.I can only speak for me, my struggles, my truth.
What I do know is, that if the family ‘stuff’, the bullying and cowardly insults on social media and beyond had not happened, I would have been writing a completely different blog. I would have then and now, been able to cope so much better than I have done. I always did. Throughout the worries that a single mother has with 2 daughters, the financial and emotional battles I fought, ill-health etc. I coped. With everything thrown at me by ‘family, I coped, but I must admit, only just. But as I have said before, PC and other cancers don’t care about the other painful issues happening in your life, doesn’t care if you are already at rock bottom. It will still barge in and cause havoc and pain. Even if you ‘beat it’, even if you survive it will have changed you and often leave you reeling before it leaves.
Because PC does not only affect the sufferer but his wife or partner, it can change family dynamics. Often a man who has always been happy and positive, can become down and sad. In the same way this can happen to his partner. Becoming a carer to the man you married and chose to spend your life with, can sometimes seem a burden. Looking after him during the illness and any subsequent treatment can often change the way you feel about him. Most of the time this is temporary. It can be really hard to see the man you love, the man you married amidst all of the pills and treatment. If you are not careful you can lose yourself and your identity as a wife and woman and lose the relationship you once had. I have seen this with carers I work with but also seen that with the right help, this can be averted. The most important thing is to look after yourself in this process. That can be hard.
I have read on here of ladies who say they are at screaming pitch, wanting to shout and their men, even thinking about leaving them. I feel so sad and angry that a disease can do this to a couple. Again it makes me grateful that we did not get to that stage, that David is hopefully now, okay. But it doesn’t stop me feeling for those affected in this way. I hear women apologising for beginning to feel differently towards their men and that this is making them feel guilty. I don’t believe that guilt is justified and have written in earlier blogs about this. PC is a couple’s disease, it is different from most cancers, most illnesses, because the side effects involve the couple, not just the sufferer.Blog entitled (EMOTIONS I NEVER KNEW I HAD.THE WE IN PLACE OF HE) The blog talks of how the worries, the waiting and the changes, in us all, during and after this cancer, are unique. It’s very nature and the consequences of treatment make it such. It is a an illness that is physical for the man but emotionally hard for both in the relationship. As such, we as wives should give ourselves a break.
I was reminded this past week, that I need to be kinder to myself. I think every partner/wife of a man with PC should do the same. After the shock of diagnosis wears off, if it ever does, the anger sets in. The ‘why me? Why us?’ Then the sadness and the worry and apprehension, bring the ‘F’. word. Fear. All the waiting along the way, accompanied by the fear and ‘what if’s’, traumatise us, leaving us with the legacies I wrote about last week. Whether our men survive and will live many years or if the cancer metastasizes and becomes terminal, we are all on this journey none of us signed up for and it affects us all. For some of us this trauma and shock, along with whatever is going on in our emotional life, everything that life is already throwing at us, this trauma can cement the bad things into our minds. Sometimes making it hard for us to see the good things. Leaving us changed and worn down and in my case somewhat a lesser woman than I was before. As I said earlier, this is just my perspective, how I feel today.
I have read back over some of my blog entries and am shocked at some of the really black places my head visited on this journey. Shocked at the low days I experienced and am, to some extent still visiting on and off today. It is, not has been but still is, like a rollercoaster of emotions. One day I am strong, the woman I know I can be and am, when working in my professional role. I am positive, strong and can see the beauty around me. I am grateful for what I have and where I find myself. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful caring daughter and now a new son-in-law who loves us all. I have horses and ponies, cats and dogs, ducks on my lake and I live in a beautiful house in a wonderful part of the country. I am grateful for all of this. But on other days, I am down, worried, sad and yes, scared. The ‘what ifs’ barge in uninvited, the past, few years, the wicked lies spread about me and my family by my daughter Lisa and her aunt, leave me saddened beyond words. None of it deserved but given so easily. I am still reeling from the wicked thing my daughter did to my brother at this critical time of his life, when all he did was trust her. I no longer feel her guilt as I acknowledge that she is not a child but a grown woman and is responsible for her own actions. None of any of this is down to me. So the guilt has gone but not the shame.
So back to my blog, what I promised from day one of writing, is the truth. ‘Say it as it is’ is my mantra. As long as it doesn’t offend or hurt, the truth is what you read here, on my page. I promised in the beginning and in all my works, my poetry, my books and on here, to write honestly, raw and open. It is only ever my perspective, and how I feel on the day I am writing. I could pretend on here, pretend all is well as I do ‘here on the farm’ on a daily basis. But I won’t. The whole reason for writing is to offload, to show how it really is for me, not everyone, but for me. I also write to let anyone identifying with my words, identifying themselves on their personal journey, to know they are no alone. That actually, for some of us, this is how we feel on this journey, the journey none of us signed up for , that this is the norm. Our norm. So that’s okay.
As the caption above says, it is easy to write the truth but also hard to bare your soul. I ask clients to do this all the time, during therapy. It was time I took that advice back a year or so ago. So write it all down is what I did and what I do. Warts ‘n all or it wouldn’t be the truth.
Thankyou for reading x
carolannwright 