A number of years ago when my husband was diagnosed with lung cancer I met a challenge head on and didn’t even know it!
In retrospect I have learned a lot about myself that I didn’t know then.
It had taken the doctors weeks to figure out what was wrong with him. He first went to the doctor complaining about pain along the back of his waistline. They did all kinds of tests and finally chest Xrays. When they discovered two tiny spots in his lungs they debated and discussed and waited. It didn’t look like cancer to them. First they thought it might be TB so they isolated him. When I visited I had to wear a mask when visiting. Then perhaps it was a fungus? So they put him on a fungicide medicine. Finally they decided they had to do a lung biopsy. Back then it meant major surgery, cutting him from front to back on his side.
The surgery took two hours longer than it was supposed to. My friend had come and gone and I was alone in the waiting room after dark. That was spooky and depressing as I sat worrying. When finally the surgeon came out he told me he’d done a lot of surgeries and while it had been very difficult to stop the bleeding because the infection (that had been causing the lower back pain) was so bad, it didn’t look like cancer.
Two days later I had left the hospital just long enough to go home and feed our kitties. On the way back I called him and he said the surgeon had just left. The pathology report had just come in and, yes, it was cancer.
I freaked out! Stepped on the gas – like getting to the hospital 5 minutes earlier was going to make any difference – but I just had to hurry to my husband. Of course he was devastated. I was too. The rug had just been pulled out from under us and we were free-falling. All we could do was hug each other.
Then I felt a shift inside me. I was in fighting mode but didn’t know it at the time. I told him we were going to beat this!
That evening the oncologist came to the hospital to talk to us. She laid out the regimen they usually followed and told us that one in three people wins this battle. Before she could start, my husband was already saying he didn’t want chemo. And I found myself piping up “But the chemo would get any parts of the cancer that the radiation might miss.”
So began the beginning of my battle with him, for him, and sometimes against him – all to win the battle against cancer.
As I look back, I knew I went into fight mode and left myself behind.
What prompted me to write this was reading someone else’s blog about how important it is to take care of yourself when you are the caregiver. I remember people telling me that a lot– to take care of myself — as the weeks and months went by. I didn’t hear any of it. I was waging battle!
I organized all his medications for him, kept track of which ones, how many, and what time I had to give them to him. I took him to each appointment for chemo. When they drew his blood and analyzed it I was right there waiting for the results, waiting to see if he needed an injection to help his white blood cell count. I took him to each radiation appointment. I came to know all the doctors and nurses pretty well. And with time, the doctors started looking to me for reports on how he was doing, because he didn’t remember so well.
As he got weaker and weaker I proposed all kinds of foods to him, trying to find one that he thought he could stomach. When his taste buds were all mixed up and couldn’t taste he even agreed to eat chicken with hot salsa. And even chicken noodle soup. He could taste those!! Cause for celebration! Even more so because he never, never, never ate chicken. This was a happy aberration.
When his hair started falling out he finally told me to cut it all off. That too was an aberration because he had always been so finicky about his hair. It had to be cut just right. Now, he just wanted it gone!
One day he was so weak he could hardly get out of bed. He told me “This healing’s a bitch!” To this day I remember that one sentence he said, because it told me his state of mind. He didn’t say “this cancer’s a bitch!” He spoke of the healing. He knew he was going to get through it. That was when I developed a whole new appreciation for him and his strength and positivity.
So for about 4 months we went along like this: medications, trying to find him something he could eat, taking him to each appointment, and friends still were telling me to take care of myself. Never thought of myself! Every ounce of energy was spent on him. Focused and determined to get him well and of course with God’s help. We prayed! A lot! We’d lie in bed and I’d ask him to say the Lord’s Prayer with me. He did. That, too, was unusual because we weren’t used to praying out loud together. All my life I’d prayed silently. But this called for extra ammunition!
Finally treatments were over and we went to Disney World in Florida with friends to celebrate. We took things slow but we were back out into the world. Such a wonder and relief!
Home again and tests were back. Spots were gone! Now we knew we would have to live from scan to scan for the next five years.
On a daily basis he would still sit in his wing chair in the living room. I’d still bring him a sandwich or whatever he wanted to eat. But when he finished he’d sit there holding his plate. Then when I walked by he’d hold out his plate for me to take. Finally I’d say “You’re not sick anymore. Take it to the kitchen yourself!”
I had finally started to take care of myself.