There are a lot of small simple things that you take for granted when you can no longer do them. Such as getting in and out of bed or getting up from a chair. They seem like such easy tasks until you struggle with it. The last two days it was quite painful to move, but with Mel’s assistance I was able to get in and out of bed. Mel warned me that I had better wake her up if I had to pee in the middle of the night. If I was in the hospital I would have had to do it all on my own while moving around with the IV. I would also get better drugs in the hospital. It is far more comfortable at home even with some of these constraints. If I was at the hospital I would force myself to walk every hour so I could get out faster as well. At home I tend to not push myself at home. I want to overachieve so if they say 2 or 4 days I want to beat it by half. If they tell me 1 or 2 days then obviously I need to get discharged right away.
Over the last 3 days I have come to appreciate Mel my wife even more. She has been incredibly accommodating and helps me out with anything even when it disrupts her. I seem to be having some issues with bladder control. When I was leaving the hospital I seemed to have dribbled a bit. Same with yesterday. Mel took off the sheets and cleaned up without complaints. It is a bit ridiculous to me that I am losing some control over that. Mel also warned me that she would kill me if I did anything in the middle of the night without her. She would rather be up and monitor me than hear me crashing to the floor in the middle of the night.
Yesterday Mel had to go pick up Xavier and it was just Olivier and myself. I asked him to help me get to my room and to sit down. He complied but I could tell that he was uncomfortable with it all and he asked me if he had to stay in the room with me without his tablet. I told him no and he was on his way. The kids are aware that I have cancer and are aware that I had surgery, but we glossed over the seriousness of it. I think that we will tell them eventually but not now. When they get a bit older and they can comprehend it more. I am sure that Xavier has done his own research on this. If you look up metastasized gastric cancer the 5 year survival rate is abysmal. So far i have beaten the odds and they have not see spread. Like Asai said, the likelihood of it coming back is quite high but if we can deal with it like this one day at a time it will be ok. I was trying to cut back on the pain meds today but I opted not to. Every time I get up it does not hurt as much or put as much pressure on my core. You do not realize how critical a strong core is until it is taken away.
I understand why some spouses choose not to go through all of this when their partner is going through it. I understand why they would abandon the person. The caregiver gives up so much more than the patient. Mel said she knows what this was like as it is similar in a sense to when you have a c section after birth. I remember helping her and doing whatever she wanted no questions asked. The exception is that Mel knows what she is doing and how to help me get out of bed a bit easier. At the time she gave birth I could use brute strength to move her around where now we need to cooperate. I could never abandon someone I love when they need me the most. But I get it. The strain can be too much. It helps when you see this as us versus the problem, but the patient can not have the mindset that “I” am going through this and not you. My friends and family live vicariously through me so I imagine that it is tough to see me struggle and everyone is offering help. A friend of ours dropped off frozen soup for us this morning. It is still a frozen block so I have not tried it yet. We can eat that tomorrow. I am pretty sure that I will not be able to cook much until next week. I am not supposed to push/pull/lift anything over 10lbs for 4 to 6 weeks. It seems like an awfully long time. Next week I will call my surgeon to book a follow up. I know that I am in good hands with all of my doctors and wonder what the plan moving forward will be. When I was in the hospital and they asked me about my pain. I think I said a 7 or 8. It sucked. They gave me morphine and then I said about a 3 or 4. Yesterday I would say it was 4 to 5 with today being a 1 or a 2. When I was getting out of bed after one difficult time I swore and Mel laughed at me saying that I must be in pain. We tend to not use very much vulgarity when we talk. What makes my case challenging is that it has defied all odds and is not progressing as expected. I am not a normal case and normally when you see what I have it has progressed extremely far. So far that has not been the case. Hopefully we can continue to shock and surprise everyone.
Thank you to everyone who sends best wishes and drop things off for us. I appreciate all of the kind gestures from everyone. My heart felt thanks go out to everyone. If I do not reply to you it is .last likely because I am sleeping or just about to sleep and too tired to write.
Q