Hi Veronica,
You are and your husband are in the same situation as my wife and I found ourselves in Jan 2010, Stage IV colorectal with inoperable liver mets.
One never, in their worst nightmares imagines this will happen to themselves or a loved one, but it does. This useless, insidious, no good disease of cancer, uninvited, just kicks in the front door and takes over our lives. One day it isnt there, the next that is all there is in our lives.
When my wife 1st started on the chemo (it was not going to be a cure, it was palliative,} after the bowel opp, she was in a ward bed, the oncologist called for a family meeting, just me, and told us, "this liver tumour is doubling in size every 2 weeks, and it is now grapefruit size, and there are 2 other lesions. The chemo may kill you, because we do not have the time to wait and see how you will tolerate it because if you dont do it, you may have 4weeks left".
Being with my wife as she had chemo for the 1st time, and every time, but the 1st was the worst, was like being in a nightmare that would not go away, I used to think that we had gone to sleep one night and had woken up in a different dark, black world of horror, and indescribable sadness.
Our lives up till then had been one of laughter, colour, plans for our future together, that was all we asked, but even to ask that was too much .
My wife had retired one year earlier at the age of 55. One year later she is dx with terminal cancer and is on palliative care, how the hell did we end up here. We stayed positive, you have to.
As the different options came up,and were rejected, radioactive glass beads,radio ablation, surgery was out of the question because of the location of the tumour, as the doors closed on us, and the CT and PET scans showed more spread, the blackness got blacker.
She had 48 rounds of chemo, every 2 weeks we went up, my wife was a very brave lady, I watched my loved one of 40yrs loose weight, get chemo brain, medication for this, for that, suffer the side effects.
After 2 years of this, the chemo stopped working, and I was with her when she died painlessly 21/12/11.
It is a journey through hell, my dearest wish is that one day, this good for nothing bag of rubbish called cancer is obliterated from the world forever.
Sorry to be so emotional.
wombat4
