The Silence

[kayc]

17 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

In one breath they are advising me and in the next telling me of plans with thier spouses.

Wow, amazing!  It's hard to know what to respond to that!  The advice I can counter, but the "sharing plans", what do you say, "Are you obtuse?"  Few of us want to alienate them, but gosh, gee whiz, what does it take to wake these people up!

11 hours ago, Widowedbysuicide said:

knew for sure that he was ok I would feel so much better.

I believe with all my heart that they are MORE than okay, they are at peace, and since time is no more, they don't have the miserable sense of waiting that we do, I think they are much better off than we are!

2 hours ago, TomPB said:

You can't hold on to memories at night. I really miss physical contact. 

I don't even remember what that's like, it's been so long...I mean I can remember with my mind, but it's like a long ago movie I've watched, it's not a recent loss for me so I guess I've gotten used to living without touch in the many years since.  That's maybe even sadder than missing it.  The last time I went to the doctor, they had tons of papers for me to fill out.  They asked me about sex.  I wanted so bad to write, "What's that?!"

[Gwenivere]

15 hours ago, mittam99 said:

I guess it's about trying to make the best of a worst case scenario situation. It's an overwhelming and daunting task. And we're facing it alone. Truthfully, it's amazing we're functioning at all.

I guess it's how you define functioning.  I'm just going thru the motions at most.  I forget how it feels to really live.

[Gwenivere]

5 hours ago, kayc said:

I don't even remember what that's like, it's been so long...I mean I can remember with my mind, but it's like a long ago movie I've watched, it's not a recent loss for me so I guess I've gotten used to living without touch in the many years since.  That's maybe even sadder than missing it.  The last time I went to the doctor, they had tons of papers for me to fill out.  They asked me about sex.  I wanted so bad to write, "What's that?!"

I was talking to my counselor about this very thing yesterday.  He said the law is trying to make solitary confinement illegal as it is inhumane torture.  I haven't been held or significantly touched in almost 3 years.  I'd give anything to lay my head on his shoulder and feel his arms be it for a loving moment or to cry my eyes out.  I know I cry more because it's not as cathartic by yourself. It's almost becoming more frustrating.

[Gin]

The silence is such a horrible thing to deal with.  Some days I do not see or talk to anyone. (Like today). Other days I at least talk on the phone or text.  Not anywhere near the same as having Al with me to hold and be held and to talk and share with.  I want so much to feel him with me, but so far I do not.  Maybe someday.  Friends and family have no idea how lonely this life is.  My big thrill for today will be to go to the local restaurant and bring home a dinner.  I will exchange a few words there.  I am again getting so disappointed that folks just do not get it.  Feeling like a castoff.

[Gwenivere]

Last night I lost it going to bed.  I hadn't cried in a long time but had been feeling it coming.  I was almost in a rage in my tears.  I cried because I miss and love Steve so much I wanted to die.  I also hated him so much for leaving me.  And it was hate.  Pure rage.  (I don't need reminders he didn't mean For this outcome). Our doc said to get a prostate check 2 years before the cancer was so advanced.  He blew it off.  It was found by accident when he applied for a change in life insurance and was turned down.  He didn't tell me til he was diagosed that the doc said to do it earlier.  Would he still be here?  I don't know, but he would have had a 2 year jump on it.  He encouraged his friends to get checked and one did catch it fast and is cured.  He withheld from me after the surgery some cells had escaped which was bad.  I found this out when it attacked his bladder.  Then the complications just snowballed from there for years.  

Altho pointless now, I don't know what to do with this new found anger at him.  How it might possibly been different had he had a simple blood test.  He always lived a charmed life and probably felt as we all want to....it won't happen to me.  My frustration now is I can't ask him.  Ask him why he made a decision that possibly destroyed our life together voluntarily.  I know better than to go to this place, but I never have before, it just came roaring out of me.  I always blamed the cancer.  But he had a choice and blew off one that could have saved him.  We all know what the loss of our spouses did to our lives.  There are no take backs.  

I don't know what to do with this anger.  Cry it out?  I can talk til I am blue in the face but I want to scream at him.  I want him sitting here to see what this has done.  I want him to feel some of this horrendous pain.  I've never wanted to inflict pain on anyone, but this I do.  All the while loving him so much, because of that love I lost.

gawd, another thing to sort out as if there wasn't enough already.  I just needed to rant.  Maybe this was triggered by losing my doc with no back up, I feel so totally abandoned.  No one I can truly talk to but here and those I pay.  The people that are tired of hearing about the grief itself will have no patience for this new phase.  One thing I know is I am not yet near done with this and how I will handle it.  My question for Steve is.....how could you, when in all other matters were so diligent, blow this one off?  Music, helping others with theirs, computer or tech probs....johnny on the spot.  Nothing got in his way.   They were too important.  His family was too.  Maybe it was himself as he gave and gave.  I loved that about him but a little self care would have put so much to bed in my mind right now. Had I known I would have dragged him along to one of my many lab draws I did often.

please don't tell me not to go here as it is too late for that.  Now I have to wrestle with the mental beast yet again.

[Autumn2]

Dewr Gwen

I am so sorry for the pain you are feeling. I dont understand men (and it seems men are more like this...sorry guys). Do they feel invinsible? I dont know. Just know we are left. For me...if only my hubby had gone to the hospital for the backache earlier AND if the hospital are disgnosed and treated his kidney stone sepsis in a timely manner...maybe things would be different soooo I have some anger toward hubby but a whole, whole lot to the hospital which had a sepsis protocol and didnt follow it. He had every symptom of sepsis. Even red flagged hours before he was given fluids or antibiotics...guess they were too inept to see. So much for sepsis protocols if not followed. Still maybe that kidney stone had it been treated would have not gone into septic shock. 

[scba]

Dear Gwen, I am very sorry. I have no words that could bring confort nor ease the pain and rage you feel, which is legitimate. This conversation that you cannot have with Steve is a painful reality that cannot be sugar coated. I have no suggestions. I do not write a journal, I don't record my thoughts. I don't know what can be of any help. 

I understand what you mean. I have too questions to make to my bf about his health choices. Pointless now, it is over. There is no more. Yet last night I dreamed with him and I was desperate to save his life. This kind of dream about being desperate hasn't happened for so long....

A part of me is angry with him but not with him. It is complicated.

I send you a virtual hug.

[kevin]

Gwen , most men are very similar to Steve's personal Health procrastination when it comes to themselves......My Wife  did all my bookings, made me get certain tests done......I know if it wasn't for outside influences making  sure my followups were done, life would be different.....Truth is, Men don't like Doc's ....this one I truly understand

[brat#2]

Gwen, I understand your rage.  I was mad a Dale for a long time in the beginning, just for the same reasons you stated.  I think he knew he was sick and just put off doing anything about it, until he couldn't hold off any longer and then it was too late and 4 1/2 months later he was gone.  I think you are just now feeling like this because like you said about all the other things that have gone on lately and you didn't feel it earlier in this journey because you had much longer dealing with Steve's illness than I did and it has just now caught up to you.  You will get through this, I don't have any magical words to tell you and I really don't know how I got through the anger, but I did, not that I still don't get mad at him now from time to time, but not like I was in the beginning.  Sending hugs, Joyce

[mittam99]

It's amazing how grief brings out so many different feelings with each individual. For me, anger has never been a feeling I've had. But I can empathize with those feeling anger. I was overwhelmed with guilt. Guilt that somehow I couldn't save Tammy or that somehow my love wasn't powerful enough or I wasn't good enough. I know these thoughts aren't based on truth because I loved Tammy with every fiber of my being and fought for her with all my might. But Tammy was gone and someone needed to be "blamed" so why not me? Thankfully in time, I stopped beating myself up and looked at things with a little more objectivity and reality.

Even though many of us here have been grieving for a long time, it's still mostly unknown territory. Each day brings it's challenges and trials and sometimes all you can do is just hold on.

[kevin]

I just heard from a Friend that one of his neighbors was in a bad way....He new he had Prostrate Cancer and refused the conventional treatment(Chemo/Rad) and chose the Natural Healing route.....It hasn't worked out but truth is he doesn't trust the Medical system......Look at Steve Jobes, all the resources at his disposal,and chose Alternate means...... 

[Gwenivere]

What makes this anger hard is I can only 'blame' Steve.  His doc told him and had I had any idea I would have insisted.  He got the very best care because of friends in high places.  The top docs in Seattle.  If he were here now, we would be having a huge fight about it.  I could direct the anger where it belongs.  Just like other fights we had when one is us screwed up big time.  I understand those if you that saw the illness and were not treated well medically.  You had a target.  Mine is the person I loved the most in this world.  What's even more sad is we can't make up.  Key word being WE.  I have to settle this in my heart on my own. We never left issues unresolved so we could ditch the baggage that creates.

[mittam99]

Gwen, and this is me just thinking this out, I'm no expert on anger by any means. I understand why you're angry and why you're angry with Steve. We loved them with everything we had and our life is miserable without them. We want our old life back and we want to share the love again. But what we want will never be in this life. So, right now, in the present, that anger has to be eating you up inside. And there's no resolution because Steve's not there to yell at and he's not there to tell his side of things. It's sort of a lose-lose proposition. Unfortunately, I don't know how to resolve it. I wish I could because it pains me that you're hurting so badly. It would be easy for me to say "let go of the anger" but who knows it that would even help.

Just curious what your therapist says regarding this (if I'm not prying too much).

[MartyT]

Gwen, the way you describe your Steve, he sounds to me like a man who loved his life with you and wanted desperately to live ~ to think of himself as strong and healthy ~ not as someone who was sick and growing weaker, who was in need of medical treatment and who could succumb to a terminal illness. Acknowledging his illness and letting you in on the secret would have interfered with his denial of his own mortality. 

[DaveM]

I think anger is a valid and reasonable response to what has happened to us for many here. I am just passing the 6-month mark, and am still largely in the early throes of this struggle. But if I think about it outside the immediate pain, I have building anger, too. I'm not ready to express it yet, but it is growing. It may burst forth, or it may not, but I know it's there.

I have been loosely keeping a sort of journal, more of a long file, writing down my recollections of what Dana was like, what happened to her, and how I feel her family and her doctors let her down in some ways.  Like Marg has described, I talk to her every day. For a short time I felt she somehow was hearing me, but also like Marg, lately I don't feel she is listening.  The truth is, she let herself down some toward the end, as well. She didn't follow all the doctors' instructions, and stopped trying to get things fixed. I am  beginning to think about those things a lot, and my mad is building (we both had previously laughed at a kid's saying "That makes my mad."). As I look back through my words, I can see I have not included her role.

So I am suddenly thinking maybe I need to write her a letter. To tell her that I'm angry that she let herself down in some ways, because in doing so, she let me down. To tell her she should have called on me to help more. To tell her I'm furious that she's gone. To tell her I miss her so. And hopefully, to tell her I will forgive her.

[DaveM]

So now I read Marty's response, that came in about the same time as mine. And maybe Dana was in denial of her own mortality. And maybe I should keep some thoughts to myself.

[Gwenivere]

Thanks for all the replies.  Marty, I do believe Steve thought no way this could happen to him.  But he made an unwise choice.

Mitch, my counselors will be getting an earful this week!  :-)

[Margm]

I know I was in denial.  We both had beat life threatening health problems, three very serious ones.  I was not going to let it happen.  I sincerely thought we could beat it.  We were immortal.  So, I did not talk about it with him, only the next miracle we were going to have.  Then God made me quit playing God.  

[kayc]

16 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Last night I lost it going to bed.  I hadn't cried in a long time but had been feeling it coming.  I was almost in a rage in my tears.  I cried because I miss and love Steve so much I wanted to die.  I also hated him so much for leaving me.  And it was hate.  Pure rage.  (I don't need reminders he didn't mean For this outcome). Our doc said to get a prostate check 2 years before the cancer was so advanced.  He blew it off.  It was found by accident when he applied for a change in life insurance and was turned down.  He didn't tell me til he was diagosed that the doc said to do it earlier.  Would he still be here?  I don't know, but he would have had a 2 year jump on it.  He encouraged his friends to get checked and one did catch it fast and is cured.  He withheld from me after the surgery some cells had escaped which was bad.  I found this out when it attacked his bladder.  Then the complications just snowballed from there for years.  

Altho pointless now, I don't know what to do with this new found anger at him.  How it might possibly been different had he had a simple blood test.  He always lived a charmed life and probably felt as we all want to....it won't happen to me.  My frustration now is I can't ask him.  Ask him why he made a decision that possibly destroyed our life together voluntarily.  I know better than to go to this place, but I never have before, it just came roaring out of me.  I always blamed the cancer.  But he had a choice and blew off one that could have saved him.  We all know what the loss of our spouses did to our lives.  There are no take backs.  

I don't know what to do with this anger.  Cry it out?  I can talk til I am blue in the face but I want to scream at him.  I want him sitting here to see what this has done.  I want him to feel some of this horrendous pain.  I've never wanted to inflict pain on anyone, but this I do.  All the while loving him so much, because of that love I lost.

gawd, another thing to sort out as if there wasn't enough already.  I just needed to rant.  Maybe this was triggered by losing my doc with no back up, I feel so totally abandoned.  No one I can truly talk to but here and those I pay.  The people that are tired of hearing about the grief itself will have no patience for this new phase.  One thing I know is I am not yet near done with this and how I will handle it.  My question for Steve is.....how could you, when in all other matters were so diligent, blow this one off?  Music, helping others with theirs, computer or tech probs....johnny on the spot.  Nothing got in his way.   They were too important.  His family was too.  Maybe it was himself as he gave and gave.  I loved that about him but a little self care would have put so much to bed in my mind right now. Had I known I would have dragged him along to one of my many lab draws I did often.

please don't tell me not to go here as it is too late for that.  Now I have to wrestle with the mental beast yet again.

Gwen, no one can talk you out of what you feel, nor should they.  I realize we're all human, we make mistakes, hindsight is easier to see, but I also wish George would have taken up my suggestion to see a different doctor, as the one he was seeing was not taking his heart symptoms seriously.  But he didn't.  Neither of us knew this was life and death.  Neither of us had any inkling he'd be gone in no time at all.  If he could have foreseen this I'm sure he would have made a different choice and gotten the help he needed.  I don't  blame him, I guess whether I do or don't makes no difference ultimately, because he's gone and that's what I live with.

I wish you could have some peace...

[Margm]

10 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Mitch, my counselors will be getting an earful this week!  :-)

I hope your counselors can help Gwen.  I keep thinking about what Dr. Webb, Billy's oncologist said "shoulda, woulda, coulda" and I just wonder how often he has to say that.  Just like being a hospice nurse, counselor, doctor, funeral directors, there are jobs in this world that must be inhabited by Angels, because no mere mortal could put up with the suffering they have to see.  Marty is one of those Angels.  We know they are mortal people, but they see "us" each day.  I wonder, do they have to retire early.  How can anyone put up with this suffering from so many sources, but they do it each day.  I marvel at them, how can they ever be happy?  I know they must get their rewards from seeing one small ray of sunshine come out of someone's life, but what about their life?  My mama always brought her work home with her, talked about it constantly, we got so tired of it.  My sister, who worked for the social service that took children away from abusive parents.  Each night talking to her I heard the ice tinkling in the glass of "good cheer" that she had to use to face each day.  I am just not that good of a person.  But there are people that good.  

I keep seeing the pasted on smile of the funeral director, older than me, (I also found that hard to believe), but he had just lost his wife of 66 years.  How do people do this job?

[MartyT]

Marg, my dear, all I can tell you is that of all the work I've done in my life and in my career, this is by far the most rewarding. I would rather spend my time with people who are genuine and honest and real even as they struggle with whatever life throws at them and still find a way to survive ~ and that's what all of you are to me. Also, dying, death, grief and loss have been part of everyone's life since the beginning of time, and will be until the end of time. I want to know how to live with and learn from that reality, and I consider each and every one of you my most precious teachers. ♥

[Margm]

I have put this on here before, about the two little girls sitting on the steps of the ambulance when it took me to the ER in 2014.  Can there be truth in hallucinations?  True enough, I was as near death for myself, closer than I have ever been that I know about. (At the time I was in and out of consciousness anyhow, but did not realize it was serious).  I remember asking where the little girls were.  I do not know why they were there, but they were sitting on the steps on each side of the front ambulance doors.  At the time I did not think of them as angels, I just wondered why they were there, and I do remember asking about them.  No one else saw them.  When the nun took my hands and prayed over me, my eyes were on the cross on the wall the whole time and she made me feel holy.  That is the only word I can think of to call it.  It is a Catholic hospital.  

Mama was in labor for eight days when I was born.  It should have been a cesarean birth, and they certainly did perform them even that far back.  At one time she said there was an angel at the foot of her bed.  

I am sure if I asked my friend, who was a transcriptionist with me, why she became a hospice nurse working nights as her first job.  You know she could have had any job she wanted, but this was the one she wanted, and if I asked her, I am sure her answer would coincide with your's Marty.  

[Margm]

19 hours ago, DaveM said:

I think anger is a valid and reasonable response to what has happened to us for many here.

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” 
― Edgar Allan Poe

Sometimes I think back on bad times just so I can get angry at Billy.  Sometimes it helps.  I know he didn't do it on purpose.  I know we had a lot of time together but finally it was gonna be "a time for us" and knowing my family, that was probably just a joke and more of the same.  Sometimes I make out like he just left me.  

Used to when I could not sleep (before Billy left), I would write a chapter to a book until I went to sleep.  Next night I would pick up where I had left off.  One time I got so into it I could write it in my head during the daytime.  I cannot get that imagination back.  So, sometimes I just get angry at him for leaving.  I don't like "long intervals of horrible sanity." 

[kevin]

I always say to make the best of the day, cup half full and all that.......So I'm in my work mode Saturday morning and trimming my 7 foot hedge....(overgrown).....I'm up the ladder and working hard in the heat, I noticed some buzzing.......then Wam/Bam/ Sting City.......I throw the trimmer, actually jumped two steps off ladder(new hip), and moved away...Two Wasp stings to right bicep....Now I look like Pop Eye ...Neighbour said I was lucky I didn't hit the nest........Nest was taken care of next morning ...You never know what the next day will bring......Angela had a Sting kit which I used 

[Gwenivere]

Ouch, Kevin.  Should you be allowed to be unsupervised?  ?