I don't know how other partners have handled their diagnosis and treatment but i think my husband has coped with it in a way that most men do with the feeling of 'reluctant to seek help for themselves because they feel they need to be ‘strong’ for us. Does that sound familiar?
Well that's just how my husband coped with it. At times i found this a bit frustrating because i needed to see that he was affected by it as well because it sometimes i felt like he was being a bit too strong if that makes sense. I could cry at the drop of a hat, but yet i never saw him cry....how could that be? It took a few months of me being sick before.... well i guess you could say 'before the shit hit the fan!'.
At the start of chemo i tried to be strong and was a bit stubborn when it came to the medication and Mat was great with convincing me to take what i needed to take etc but i always felt like everyone else (family, friends etc) allowed me to be sick when i was with them, but that Mat didn't. Most would make sure that i ate something or if my sister was over and i looked tired she would take both our daughters out into the backyard and tell me to go to bed for a few hours which was just what i needed. But when mat was home he never said anything and i used to feel like i still had to do everything that i normally would. Or during chemo i remember that i used to feel much worse if i allowed myself to get hungry so i had to eat regularly but i never knew what i wanted to eat so i'd whinge to mat and ask him to get me something, but i couldn't tell him what i wanted and he found that really difficult and frustrating.
I'm lucky that he is quite domestic and did help around the house a lot, much more than a lot of husbands that i know of, but at times i needed more help from him and he just didn't have it in him. He had not only a sick wife to think and worry about, but our 2 year old daughter as well.
When radio finished i think we both thought that i would start to feel better straight away and when that didn't happen we started to fight a bit. I was frustrated at my body because i was still so tired and i was sick of being sick and Mat was starting to get frustrated at me being tired and grumpy as well.
By the time the meningitis came, that was it really! I would have to say that this was the hardest time that we have ever gone through in our 11 years together. Neither of us had any reserves left in our emergency tanks and we just weren't getting enough time to refil them. So we fought a lot when i got home from hospital because we were taking 10 steps backwards and no steps forward.
I remember i got home from hospital a few days before melbourne cup and mat had planned to go out with his mates to get away from everything on Melbourne Cup day, and because i was home he thought that i was fine and went along to his thing. My girlfriends came over to be with me and to help with Macy and it was a nice day but i was exhausted. I still had the unbelievably bad migraines and they allowed me to just chill out and hang with them which was great but the time came for them to go home and mat still wasnt home. I called him to see when he was coming home and he was so upset with me for asking because he felt like he needed a day off. Macy ended up going home with a girlfriend of mine for a few hours so i could sleep because of my migraine and it was so frustrating for the both of us because i still needed him, but he needed a break as well.
After this episode we finally talked and i had to let him know that i still really need him and to please bear with me and understand that i'm not going to be like this forever and it will stop soon and i'll be back to being 'me' but i couldnt get there without his help. It had gotten to the stage where i was going to go and stay at my parents house after my reconstruction surgery because i didnt think that mat would be able to handle both macy and i as this surgery was going to be the hardest yet but after this chat that we had, i think we ended up on the same page and Mat was wonderful with everything.
So we went from the middle of chemo, thinking i was going to have to deal with a divorce at the same time as cancer treatment, to realising that he is my everything and i can't get through anything without him.
On the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre website (www.nbocc.org.au), there's a section called Information for men whose partners have been diagnosed with breast cancer and it covers things such as;
- What she might be feeling
- How do you feel? Typical feelings when a partner is diagnosed with breast cancer
- Sexuality and intimacy
- Impact of a breast cancer diagnosis on kids
- Knowing what to say
- Help her by helping yourself
- Healing strategies
- Where to find support
Everyone deals with it in such different ways but ultimately I can't imagine having to have gone through this without him. Once we realised that it wasn't each other that we found frustrating, it was the situation we were in and the sickness and surgeries will stop eventually and we had to just hang in there.
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