pet peeves of cancer.the small stuff i hate. go ahead and add your own

Great site. I am a caregiver to my husband with CC. I feel so much upset and not knowing what may be down the road. Sometimes I just explode and cry for hours. I hate the responsibility of taking care of work and home and family and all the bills on top of it and not knowing if, or when, he will ever feel better…….cause he hates all the things on the lists above, and I’m so exhausted from being around this situation all the time. I hate when he burps and makes this pain noise at the end like it didn’t feel good and he walks around holding his hand over his incision like his stomach hurts or he’s holding things in and he is boney and weak and 80 lbs lighter than the the totally buff man that I picked out and married and was so attracted to. He is in there somewhere but I want it all back! My relationship is hurting, I’m hurting, if this kills him one day, I’m left after a long period of upset and being drained ……up till that time. He would get to go to heaven and be released from this and I have a huge yard and pool and plants and major garage mess and young snotty whiney kids and I’m overwhelmed thinking about it every day My husband always says it is harder on the caregiver. His focus is to be optimistic, do the right things, GET BETTER, but I have to take care of everything, everybody and hold it all together. becasue someday this may be my life, alone, overwhelmed. Shoot if I can’t do it now… Sorry for this, but I’m a mess and it is so bottled up. and I just want everything back the way it was, cause even if I complained them, well, I won’t now. haaha

I hate being cranky to people “raising awareness of” breast cancer. Hello. We all know about breast cancer. Really.

I can’t seem to help myself being rude and cranky to those people. I am not a rude and cranky person. But all the attention and money is focused on one type of cancer and it just doesn’t seem fair.

I hate that my mom died last week of this disease.

I hate that I’ll never talk with her again.

I hate that I’ll never get advice from her again.

I hate that she is gone.

I hate that no doctor had any interest in saving her.

I’m not at all happy that we become dependent on well-paid people who can make monumental mistakes concerning our lives.

And I’m pretty pissed at having to learn that I must truly impoverish myself–(even to the point of forced selling of family burial plots) in order to qualify myself for medicaid–because my COBRA-Blue Cross Blue Shield is running out of its 18 month eligibility period on July 31!

Oh, Kris!!!!!! What can I say that hasn’t already been said. This is certainly a wonderful thread and a great release!……Here goes,

What I HATE about this cancer is,

…the night sweats (or first hot then cold then hot..)
…numb fingers and toes – sleeping with a pillow under my knees so my
heels don’t touch the bed and another one to prop up the sheet so
it doesn’t touch my toes
…the waiting for results of anything; tests, chemo, doctors to decide
next steps, appointments, you name it. Nothing that you want
goes fast.
…not only the farting, but the burping too. Sometimes I think I could win a
burping contest. (my son thinks it’s funny!)
…the power port flush “taste” (that’s the heparin), and having to have it
flushed even when you don’t have chemo treatments.
…my power port in general for being where it is and so noticeable (some of
the looks I get from people who don’t know what it is, making me
feel like I have to cover it up all the time). I should just tell them
I’m an alien and that’s how I get my air.
…when my 5 year old asks to “touch my bumps” referring to the power port,
and he asks when it will be “gone”. It’s hard to tell a child so
young about these things.
…although my surgical scar across my middle is fading (all wavy 12″ of it), it
is still very lumpy.
…my weight gain both times during chemo treatments.
…that my middle is STILL numb from surgery after a year. I even bump into
things and don’t realize it.
…that cancer has aged me so much in such a short time.
…that most of all, that this cancer has cheated my family out of the benefit
of ME. Cheated my son out of his mother, my husband out of his
wife, my mother out of her only daughter, and my brothers our of
their pesky older sister. I’m still not done yet here. I still have
many, many more years of picking on them to do.
…being so tired during chemo treatments that I can’t do things with my son
like I’d like to. (He has such patience with me though.)
…the feeling of self-pity I had thinking I was so alone in this cancer, until I
found this website.

It was wonderful to read everyone’s posts. What humor we have in a lot of you. We all give each other one thing most cannot….the link we have through CC gives us each understanding and this thread shows it.

Thanks again Kris! (I get the pregnancy look thing too. It’s like all my
weight went to my front middle, like I’m
pregnant. Not 9-months, but I still feel
pregnant. I’m with you on that Tommy – tell your
mom!)

Linda Z.

The first time I saw this post, I didn’t post what I or Tom hated about this cancer because I thought it would be too negative. But now that I have seen others posts….

I hate that this cancer has taken my once vibrant and fun loving robust husband and turned him into the ‘thin’ man who is no longer capable of eating the food that he loves, no longer able to garden like he used to be able to do.

I hate medical bills and knowing that starting July 1st we have to meet a $3,000 deductible and then another $3,000 out of pocket, but I’m also grateful that we do have health insurance.

I hate the external drain bag that collects the bile and I hate flushing it every day and changing the bandage. I hate the hole in Tom’s side where the tube goes into the liver. I hate the stitches that hold the tube in place.

I hate 4×4 gauze pads, Tegafilm, 10cc flushes and bile in general. Bile should be something that we aren’t aware of and stay where it belongs.

I hate knowing that Tom and I will not grow old together because at some time this cancer will take him away from me, from our children, our grandchildren. I hate it that his little namesake Tommy will probably not grow up having Grandpa teach him how to fish, grow flowers, talk about life in general. But I love that my daughter named her firstborn after her stepfather!

Tom hates: CC, external drain, ERCP’s, Flushing of the drain and bandage changes. He hates that he looks 20 years older than he is. He hates that he can’t wear jeans very often becuase the seams wear on his tail bone (He has no meat on his butt)

Tom hates the thought that after only 9 short years of being married to me that he may be taken away long before his time.

He hates that now that he has reunited with his first born daughter, he will have to leave her again because of CC.

He hates knowing that he has a death sentence because of CC but understands that we all have to die (and pay taxes!) but would rather die not knowing it was coming.

He hates the stares that he gets from people when we go to the store. He hates that shocked look on friends faces when they see him if they haven’t seem him in awhile.

He hates not being able to sleep on his left side.

He hates feeling sick.

There I did it!

Margaret and Tom