Caregivers have feelings too

I have been pondering this one for a few days. A woman who has had breast cancer twice and had one mastectomy followed by another wrote into an advice column. She was writing about how her husband wouldn't have sex with her since her last surgery 3 years ago. The advice column said she was right in going to counseling because her husband was probably still upset about her second round of breast cancer and surgery and it wasn't about her loss of breasts.

Readers also commented on it. One said said he's having an affair. Two said counseling. But overall the answer was he was too scared of losing her and traumatized by it.

I have been on both sides of the cancer diagnosis. It is traumatic. If you are the patient, its mostly focused on you. Very little is focused on the caregiver.

Once the physical healing is over, the emotional healing is still going on. My husband and I have had many conversations from both sides of the diagnosis about life insurance, what if one of us dies, what would you do, that end of life conversation, and more. all the taboo topics are no longer taboo when you the c-word shows up in your life.

The woman who wrote in said her husband has his own business and works 7 days a week so he doesn't have time for counseling. Maybe his work schedule prevents him from seeing that his wife is doing okay these days. Maybe if he saw how well she was doing that would help him lose the feeling he might lose her. Maybe burying himself in his work he is hiding from his feelings?

I am no psychologist but he needs some care too.

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Angry at cancer?

There are supposedly five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It is the process we go through when faced with a 'bad' thing - a death, a yucky medical diagnosis, or other trauma. I know I went through something like this.

Anyway, I recently experienced two events which made me think about this. The first one is I was with a few other cancer people and one of them said she was so angry about cancer and another agreed. I thought this was pretty shocking since I know both were diagnosed several years before me. Which means they have been angry for a long time.

Then a few days later I met a woman who said she had lots of friends who had had cancer and some of them were very angry about it which was upsetting to her. She was coping and doing okay and into the acceptance stage and all these others were just angry and it made it harder for her.

Anger is a nasty emotion. It creates negativity and stress - neither of which do much for quality of life. I think the one thing I learned the first time I had cancer is that I wasted a lot of time being upset about it. The second time I decided I was going to take care of me - first and foremost. It took time to work through it and cope with the roller coaster it brings but I think I am doing okay.

Its all a matter of attitude. I basically think I was lucky enough to get cancer twice - any other way of thinking is just stressful. But I also consider cancer the gift that keeps on giving. It is my way of accepting what I am living with.

But people with anger are just making themselves miserable. They are not coping and accepting. They are still fighting and exhausting themselves. Anger is a waste of energy. No cancer is not fun and it can be fatal. But it isn't always and we need to appreciate that we are still here.

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