Kicking Cancer’s Ass…12 weeks down and its still taking forever!

Now that treatment is over I feel the waiting is just terrible…its awful…watching the hubs in his worst pain the week after his last treatment was unbearable…and dealing with this feeding tube plain-ole SUCKS…there I said it…I know the damn thing is there to help him stay nourished by boy oh boy…I do not like it one bit… changing his feeding bags, crushing all his meds to administer them through the tube…all of this is so time consuming. And I am on my own now…while he was in treatment he was surrounded by the world’s greatest army ~ Cleveland Clinic who worked tirelessly keeping him afloat…with the main goal…cure his damn cancer. Now I no longer have a medical team around me. Its a strange feeling when you no longer going back and forth to the hospital weeks on end…to suddenly stop…to one-two days a week…to weekly and to every other week.

I see his fear in his eyes for not knowing if the cancer is still there…the not knowing is killing the both of us! We had this magical date in our heads… August 9th…Pet-scan…he will find out August 9th…um nope…it may take longer…OMG do you know what this is doing to Greg…his anxiety and depression is not getting any better…in fact it is getting worse…he hates me leaving the house, which is unavoidable when I have photo shoots and/or meetings. I make sure I can find someone here when I’m gone but it is not always the case and he now depends on his anxiety meds. I always felt I could help him through this and sometimes would go in another room and cry because there was nothing I could say or do that will get his anxiety and depression to lessen. I think we all like to hear that we matter, that we make a difference, that we are loved. In the end, you can never go wrong by telling someone what they mean to you, so that’s what I did…always remind him. This is partnership to me. But what he had a hard time with is understanding the need for me to separate myself from him…well no not him…the cancer…Some days I just needed to chat…other days a friend to just be there and catch up on gossip. Some days I needed a friend to be silly with or just go “just looking” shopping {finances will NOT allow frivolous shopping for quite some time now} and try to put cancer in the back seat for a few hours. I just called it recharging my batters…but for 9 weeks now its been full flown Greg duty and photography business…I desperately needed some Vickie time and it was so hard for me to let him know…he couldn’t get passed the cancer and see that there was still the big world out there…he needed to start to learn about “life” again.

As he slowly got some strength back he was able to walk around longer than 10 minutes at a time he was able to come on some errands with me…he was so bored staying in the house he even went on a few photo shoots with me…knowing it would help him and think it would help with his anxiety and depression I learned I was enabling his anxiety/depression and he needed to learn to be alone again…and learn to start taking care of himself…One, no one wants to hear they had help in creating anxiety and two…you still want to know what you can do to help him…I honestly feel this cancer journey has been taken up so much of our life…I want to enjoy my days as much as he needs to be enjoying his.

He’s confided in me that he is getting used to the “stares”…which by the way I was SHOCKED on how many people did stare…sometimes for so long and obvious I wanted to just stare back and say “its a tube…it gives him food…does that answer your questions?” but would continue walking looking at the hubs thinking he wasn’t phased by the stares…but when he mentioned this ~ it just broke my heart! But as quickly as he confided we got the news it was coming out!!! I literally did a happy dance! The hubs on the other hand fixated on it…fear set in…what if he couldn’t swallow food…what if he can’t taste anything…what if he still has to drink Ensures…he fixated on all the what-if’s and didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I also think it was the fear of how it would “feel” when they took it out…but me…I kept my over-excitement under control…time will tell how he will be handling food again…and boy was that an adventure.

He took a couple of weeks to try to swallow tiny bites, and increase bite size and food softness get more harder and eventually learned to swallow again…but the food taste is going to take some time…ugh there it is again…more time…baby steps…what I find is hard to process is if he can swallow and his pain is in check with pain patches, why doesn’t he eat…the fact of the matter is..he won’t if he can’t taste it…and he can’t just put something in his mouth…chew…and then swallow…he has no saliva in his mouth so everything has to be chewed to death and then swallowed with a drink of water…making the food tasting experience even worse…so when there was no flavor to begin with…and add water to already mushy food…he didn’t care for the consistency…so I was just counting the days for him to start tasting something…anything! And that day came…he can taste bananas, chicken, tomatoes, and beef…yay yay yay…guess what we are living off of for a while haha!

I do have to admit, each day that goes by Greg is getting stronger and stronger…today he is officially off the pain meds…it was a long process to wean him off of it but he did it. He unfortunately will not be off the anxiety/depression meds for awhile, but time will tell. What the hubs needs to do is to start enjoying life again…figure out who he is now…now that the constant flood of doctor’s appointments, blood tests and phone calls from concerned family and friends have trickled to a slow drip.

I apologize that I haven’t updated the blog in awhile…I have more time to get some work done now that the hubs is feeling better and taking some time away from the cancer, but didn’t realize so many people are reading and waiting for my posts. Many {even people I have never met} say they are finding comfort in my words and here I thought I was writing aimlessly talking about my fear, despair, but also the constant commitment to the hubs to always be strong with a positive for life. I am floored by the amount of family, friends, and even strangers reaching out to me. I even had a wife of a just-diagnosed cancer patient say that I had “the ability to touch the hearts and minds of countless people, the circle of mutual love and support that you envisioned and created here continues to encompass all those who seek insight, wisdom, and practical advice” WHAT?!?!? REALLY?!?!!? WOW…I was shocked and very touched that my ramblings helped just one person!

With that said, there are so many people in our life who are so wonderful and who offer to help, who make it easy to accept it. Who send notes or emails of support even one month after after his treatments. Who keep asking what they can do. Who pointedly give ways they can help and ask if I could use it. Please trust me when I say it is all appreciated…thank you so much! We finally have his Pet-scan on the schedule…it will be August 18th…so the hubs will have a go-to date…now lets hope we find out that same day he is cancer-free!!!

I can now say he is done with drinking Ensure…