Cancer Makes a Difference…
What are we left with, once cancer rolls through our lives?
Does it do a hit and run and leave a ‘survivor’, does it hang-out, cause stress then retreat for a while, only to make another appearance years down the road, or does it hit hard and take a life? What’s the toll we pay?
I’m three years past the worst of the worst and I’m still trying to figure this out. I have a close friend, a “fellow widow” now who is just beginning her journey. I try to pass on the wisdom that it’s a slow unfolding of a different life, and I’m talking about the loss of your spouse, your sounding board. The person who listened when you needed to vent, the person who got your sense of humor, someone you could gripe to about the stupidest things and most serious matters too. This was the person you loved the most. Gone.
And, it’s the rest of the stuff I’m talking about too…what’s left of us?
I still get up in the morning with a huge list of things on the “to do” list. My days are filled with work and projects and friends and family, so why is it all different? Why does it FEEL different?
I read stories about people who have come through cancer experiences and they talk about how they’ve managed to fill-in the spaces of their lives and have moved on and I wonder, have I gotten ‘stuck’ in some sort of grief rut? I don’t feel like I have, but would I be the last to know?!!
You can’t tell me, these folks don’t feel different. Cancer kills more than your loved one.
Let’s be honest about this, please.
September 20, 2011 @ 10:46 pm
Losing the person you love, heart wrenching, devastating, painful, the words to explain it go on and on. I can best describe it to an outsider this way…
You have a bad back, it hurts with every waking moment, you can’t see it, no one can, but you feel the pain. You wake up and you can barely take that first step because the pain is over whelming. There’s nothing anyone can do, there are drugs to numb the pain, surgery to make it a bit better, but the reality is…it will always be there. As you take a few more steps upon waking, the pain eases and before you know it, you are standing straighter and now you know you can exercise. It makes the muscles stronger but deep in the back of your mind, it’s still there. It never goes away…. I know, I experienced both…and they both still hurt! No one but me can see it now….
September 20, 2011 @ 12:22 pm
Let’s be more global Laurie,
‘Cancer’ not only robs us…death is the ultimate game changer. I have lost two siblings to the marauder; one in a plane crash-the other to cancer, and I can tell you right now the cause made not the least whim of difference to the final outcome.
What you are left with is a void that will NEVER be quite filled….life will never again be the same. Not to say, it can’t get better with time; that old cliche is indeed true, but the composition of who you are in the world is forever different.
You look at things differently and feel things differently when there has been such a loss. Family get togethers and holidays are less.And the loss of a spouse is beyond my imagining–your lifeline, intimate half, is gone.
I wish I had profound pearls of wisdom to impart, but I’ve deduced the only way to get through it is to allow yourself to feel the grief and realize there is NO right or wrong way to feel. Sometimes, you don’t have to put on that brave smiley face when you’re not up to feeling it.
But, one day, you wake up and it doesn’t hurt quite as bad and slowly the smile spreads and you do feel it.
Like Tiny Tim said: May G_ _ bless us one and all, and may you have the start of a happy and healthy New Year.
nancy nerenberg
September 19, 2011 @ 10:02 pm
As I have mentioned before, my husband survived colorectal cancer. He just finished all his annual tests and received a good report. It will be nine years in November. Yes, we were forever changed. Once you have run the gamet of radiation, chemotherapy, surgeries, and much more, you are just not the same person and you never will be. And your body won’t be the same either. This weekend, a friend told me that her father has lung cancer and has refused all treatment. Now that I know what I know, I respect that. Either way, it’s not easy. Nine years and the memory is still pretty fresh.
September 19, 2011 @ 8:18 pm
Well….it’s the old story of any situation. I think I’m the only one that feels like this but lo and behold the feeling must run rampant among us. I get up every day (don’t necessarily want to some days), go to work (allows me to feel normal for a few hours) and come home…and it hits. Jim’s not waiting for me with that loving smile and a warm hug so the pity party begins and the fight to figure out how to spend my evening is on. Before cancer there were so many things I could count on, and yes I took a lot of it for granted, but my world has been rocked to the core and I cannot move forward. We had plans and things we wanted to do but that’s never going to happen. I see other women who have been widowed, my God I hate that word, and they have built new lives and found new loves but I’m just going through the motions of living. Cancer not only robbed me, it robbed my children and Jim’s family. It left us sitting in it’s dust and moved on to the next unsuspecting person. I’m glad you opened this discussion and asked for honesty because this seems to be the only place where people “get it”. Thank you!
September 19, 2011 @ 7:27 pm
Your loved one fell off a roof while you made it back to what is perceived as solid ground. Openly and without hesitation you put your hands up and tried to break the fall. It helps when others try to “lift” you up from concrete reality, but only a few know the true extent of your injuries. The pressure can be overwhelming. Time does not heal all wounds-you can just get far enough away to realize it was the trip up that truly mattered.
September 19, 2011 @ 7:06 pm
Once cancer enters your life or the life of your loved one, both are forever changed. Those who say that “nothing is different now that cancer is gone” are not really being honest. They are probably just in denial and denial is their way of coping. I believe that it gives each of us, caregiver or patient, a glimpse at our own mortality and often it is not something we wish to contemplate now or ever. We are all going to die. It is a matter of when and how! Cancer brings this reality close to us and we are ill prepared to accept that reality whether it is the caregiver or patient. Cancer is stark, dark, brutal, unforgiving, merciless, tormenting and harsh but I have seen through its reality a serenity, calm, peace and forgiveness that comes when you’d least expect it. The human spirit rises above the pain and accepts the grace and mercy that is extended. Often a peace that transcends our undertsanding comes and allows us or our loved one to slip away. It is with this moment that the caregiver is changed forever. And I hope and pray that this change is for good. Goodness wins. Cancer loses.