Upon doing so, ever been close to ending it? I'm just wondering especially for us who have been suffering long term. And, if you have a significant other, what and how are they dealing with this?
Frustrated
This is such an important subject. Great that you have brought it up. It can have so many shades of meaning from the thunderous sudden deliberate END to a quiet determined preference that quality of life is more important and length of days or medical overall survival statistics.
I have a cousin whose husband when nearing his retirement date was diagnosed with cancer., I never spoke to him about the matter but piecing a afew hints together I think his reasoning was (for this was decades ago and medicine has moved on a lot) on the lines that he would suffer much and enjoy but a few months of his hard earned and substantial pension. If he died in service his widow would enjoy the large death in service benefit. So he made sure he died before his retirement date. His moral stance is not the point I wish to raise.
The effect on his widow and family was very, very bad. It was far worse than I expected to see from my relations. They mourned his death, but more they talked constantly of their hurt that he should choose to leave them. I think betrayal might not be too strong a word. Very little, perhaps it was nothing, was said about the happy or sad events of their shared life. Almost all their words, often bitter words, were expended on the manner of his departure. He had given no hint. He had asked no advice. There had been no cry for help. He had just left and none of them could understand it. None of them could find any comfort. Only time, as it will, softened the hurt. It was a long time before they could talk of the times they had shared with him.
i have thought about it at times when the pain and fatigue is relentless but some
how some thing pulls me through , i like to think its loved ones in spirit giving me the strenght to go on , daft to some of you i know . but my faith that my loved ones still
care for me helps me cope
Thanks for that Tina. Yes, I find the suport and interest of friends and relations very important. The most obvious effect is on my mood. I believe to that angels on occasion visit us (both seen and unseen) to help and strengthen us when our ailments are particularly trying. The most dramatic help is instantanious healing by God. That last seems to be rare but nonetheless real.
I've seen too many go this way and seen the affects on their families. Still one in particular stands out. One friend of my daughters father was ill. He kept working and fighting this cancer. He went into remission and all was well. It came back. His father did leave a note stating he didn't want to burden the family so he would move on and allow them to grieve and start over. Start over?
Also, two of my sister in laws one from my side of the family and one from my husbands both did this act. The one from my side of the family was afflicted while working one day as a cardio nurse. She passed out in the parking lot and luckily she was rushed right in and they worked and worked on her. She had an aneurysm and did suffer memory loss and a few other afflictions but I forgot how and what. She did have to go to therapy and there she met a former drug addict. They became involved and she left her husband after 22 years. She also left her daughter who was a senior in high school. She did some really bad things with this guy even to the point they "robbed" her husbands home but he was in it. He almost lost his life. She wasn't prosecuted but that changed her as well. She ended up hanging herself with a note, so sorry. So sorry? That's the respect the family received. So incidential, so sorry.
The other sister in law had always had issues. She was a Schizophrenic and made a mess of her family all in the name of "God". She would banter on and on with one of her children (she had 4) and would continue on with this for hours. Making them sit still listening to her go on and on. It was apparent that after 5 years since her passing, her one daughter brought this up on her facebook page. That was her memory of her mother. Was she relieved, yes. Was she happy her mother was gone? No, but yes. This woman suffered for all the years I knew her and sadly she wasn't aware of how severe her condition was. It alienated the entire family...from them. She was a dangerous woman that would lead you into a conversation with all smiles then BAM! she'd nail you to the cross before you could blink. She'd accuse people of unsettling issues when in fact the stuff never, ever happened. She called the police one night and reported a "stranger" entering the yard...MY YARD. You'd think she'd of called us, nope. They police where I lived at that time were so very quick and so clearly wanting to keep our city safe, so they responded with 4 police cars. Two pointing the front of the home and 2 in the rear (actually the street behind us as you could see that street from the back of our home). So, the BRIGHT lights surrounding our home and a quick knock at the door at 3 in the morning. I awoke to all the kaous going on around the home and I answered the door asking what was the problem? The officer stated that someone reported a prowler entering our backyard, did I have any idea who it could have been? Of course, I didn't. They asked to search our home to make sure we were safe. That awoke both daughters to a terrified experience of so many police surrounding our home. Why? because she was ill and delusional. Our lives were hell when she entered it. Sad to say. I tried and tried to befriend her but she would always turn things on me and for that, I don't have a clue why. She had me as her "older" sister looking after her and her family if she needed. She was sadly so ill she couldn't see a thing past what she thought. But she ended her life. It was a mixed feeling of sadness for her children yet, a calm as I knew at that point, she was no longer in the pain she suffered so severly.
This is a story I've shared to only a few. I don't like to "hang" out the dirty laundry but sometimes it releases stress and anxiety that is held w/i and makes one free from those demons.
Find the pain and you'll find your purpose in life.
Warm regards,
Frustrated
I wonder if that is so? How we cope with pain depends on our attitude, our moral. Our moral however is not fixed. One day we are in the sunny uplands. We have pain but there are also joys and pleasures and interests and we can cope. The next day grey darkness swirles over our souls. Our pain pervades everything. All our sadness and misery crowd in focusing our attention on the pain. If only it would all stop that would be better, even desireable. We do not think of the sunny uplands of yesterday's happiness. We do not think that tomorrow we might again tread those sunny uplands where we manage our pain as we did before. Does not the ease of death beckon when we are enveloped in that grey darkness? What keeps us from so dire a step and sets us to climb again up into the sunny uplands where there is jay and fun and fellowship and we struggle again with pain that strives for the mastery?
Hello Doc ~
The pain from past suffering is released if one allows themselves to deal with it. Other pain may arise, such as my pain, it's chronic and I'll live with this the rest of my life. Up days, and down days.
But one should remember, that when you do deal with the internal pain the pain that only you can find and deal with, love lifts you. Afterwards, yes, one can be totally happy.
Hello frustrated
Thanks for that, frustrated. Now isn't the love that lifts you, love that comes from another and not from within? An having achieved that total happiness that overrides physical pain, is it really permanent or depending on our humours as they change: that up and down that is so characteristic of mankind's manner of life?
We have a friend who has been at the terminal stage of kidney cancer with multiple mestasteses for over three months. Her consultant told her there was nothing more that could be done for her about 9 months ago. She needs almost daily adjustments to her medication to keep the pain from being unbearable. The prognosis, such as it is given very cautiously that she might live several months more although already her muscles are severely wasted. It is heartbreaking to see her prolonged suffering. Her husband, also in his 80s, is being destroyed by the pressure of the situation.
We visit both of them but feel so helpless. There is no question of hurrying the process along. They both believe that nature must take its course. We wonder if the medics are been too successful in extending her life , despite the suffering. She does little else but lie in bed in pain. Is it possible that doctors are so clever in extending life, or is it just an inexplicable and unusual course of her disease?
The love that lifts me comes from Lord, Jesus Christ. That's all I depend on for this true love. Anyone else, including my husband, has issues and aren't always so true to be. Meaning, some haven't dealt with past hurts and sometimes take anger out on a person that didn't cause the pain nor deserves the repercussions from it.
Just sayin'
Frustrated
I'm thinking it's an inexplicable and unusual course of the disease. Do you have hospice care where you're from? If so, I'm wondering why, since she's terminal, why they cannot come and relieve her husband of this horrible situation. She can stay at home or if there's room, go to a facility of hospice nurses. They are trained. They know what to do. I'm really curious what your country does for those who are terminally ill?
Thanks frustrated. There are times, I am learning, when I forget all my comforts and all my duties. To forget that the Lord Jesus Christ is my chief comfort and support is very terrible. I had no idea I could get into so dark a place: indeed I did not know there was so dark a place. BUT he did not say no one could pluck his hand out of mine. O no. He said no one could pluck my hand out of his, THAT is entirely different.
Doc
Yes, it is indeed. I chose to trust he chose to love.
Yes, indeed she has twice been into an excellent hospice. Every time we leave her whether at the hospice or at her home we think it is for the last time. She is calm and looking forward to being with her Lord. Could it be concern for her husband? She will not go when she sees what a bad state he is in? For a day or two perhaps but week after week? It is very troubling. I have little experience of being with a dying person. The first and only other one was my Mother over 50 years ago. That was just three days, if that.
What you say about UK terminal care. I have no impression that this is normal. There have been stories of quite aggressive life extension intervention, but not every where..
Doc
That is the perfect pithy comment.
I am no expert on the practices in the UK for the terminally ill. I understand the hospices are generally very good. When visiting the one our friend was in we were surprised to learn that they do a lot of respit care.
(frustrated, Please also see my new Discussion in the chatroom)
Thank you Doc ~ What's the name of your new discussion. I'll keep checking but thus far, I've not seen the newest one?
So glad you ar there, frustrated. I am frustrated2. ho ho ho!
The new discussion is called "Email notification but no Private Message".
Quite a coincidence, what! At the moment it is the second under the pinned Discussion. See you there.
Yep, I did reply to that just a few minutes ago. I also sent you an email so let me know if you got it. I'll wait here for a few to find out.
<3
Frustrated