Ron’s improvement was short lived. I’ll post more about that on his cancer thread. What I want to talk about here is how devastated I was personally about that.
It’s difficult to describe my landscape of emotions surrounding his cancer journey. Obviously there are highs and lows, and I expected that. But I didn’t understand how deeply and in what manner I would be affected, and how that would manifest in my life.
I stood in the shower and sobbed. I felt defeated, just completely let down and hopeless. There’s NOTHING I can do for my sweet husband to ease his pain, and as a nurturer by nature, this just destroys me.
There’s also the rollercoaster of his journey. I had not anticipated nor expected that he could be in bad shape one day, feel so much better the next, and then plummet again, all in the space of 72 hours. I just assumed that when he’d feel bad, he’d get whatever help he needed and would improve until his next infusion. I do’t know…hard to describe. I guess I expected more linear progress.
He’s typically such a positive, upbeat guy, dealing with life with humor and good nature. This pain and the drugs he’s on have beaten him down and made him cranky, snappy, short tempered and negative and that really hard to be around 24/7, and has added to my upset. When he does feel better he apologizes for his behavior, but he doesn’t feel better very often so the behavior is fairly constant.
I guess I just need to learn, for my own mental health, to have no expectations in relation to his journey, to stay completely in the moment and not assume that any positive change will continue. To just accept each moment for what it is, and not build on that for a continued good outcome.
Also I need to figure out how to not let his sour moods color my own days negatively, because that’s currently what’s happening.
This is really hard.
