The Watch began in 2016, when a Doctor told my wife, her breast cancer had returned and was stage four and had spread into her bones. Slowly it has progressed now, her hair is gone, she has lost height but not weight yet, she can do less and less each day by herself. I feed her and she can eat on her own, she can still get angry and fight back, but her left arm is the size of two baseball bats. I have to help her shower, and dress each day!
Each day she is awake less and less and three times a month, on Thursdays she gets chemo, but first she gets pepcid and decadron. Then they do her Taxial to fight the cancer head on. Then we come home and into her small recliner she goes to pass out, for hours at a clip. She is fighting it the best she can in all ways she can but her awake hours are slowly slipping away, and her sleeping hours are slowly growing, now they are well over 12 hours in a 24 hour day.
I watch her daily as she plays games on her computer in our office across the room from mine. She does the bills electronically for us and we fix what is needed around the house the best we can. Each day I am more and more alone and it grows daily believe me.
I call it the Watch, for all any man or woman can do when their spouse is a cancer patient is be patient, watch, take care of them the best they can, until,as I know one day will come, there will come the time I can’t do anymore for her.
I have my memories of our trips and good times and dancing we did, movies we saw, and plays, eating our for special dinners and traveling to see sights. Her smile, her laughter, are with me and will be till the day I die. We are at 26 years together, come May 2019 and married going on 19 years come September.
I will never regret asking her to dance, I will never regret loving her, and caring for her ever. She is my better half in more ways then one, believe me.
But the watch keeps happening, getting up in the morning and the first thing I do is stop by her recliner to make sure she is still with me, and hoping I see her move or watch her breath. Then getting my coffee and hoping she will awake again for another day. It is called the cancer Watch by me, others call it a death watch as you will for the inevitable to happen. The spouse has no choice in what he or she does, we stand and wait and pray it will be painless for them when they go, when do we have to dial 911 and ask for help, we never know. Yet we do it, for we are the ones they depend on to care for them, to make them comfortable and keep them stable and as happy as possible. When the end will come we can never know day to day, yet we have to steel ourselves for it, mentally and emotionally. It is all we can do to keep going ourselves. We give up whatever life we have ourselves to live theirs to keep them company and going as long as we can and pray they will pass without pain or suffering. Yes It is a Watch, and we who do it suffer almost as much as the one we are watching it breaks our souls, our hearts and causes us tears!
That’s the Watch folks!
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Macattack56's Blog 