STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER

Haliday

We, too, have cancer. He is stage 4 prostate, I am stage 2B breast cancer. We call ourselves the cancer ward. And we take turns taking care of each other. Good times! Spending our childrens’ inheritance on travel while we can.

ShetlandPony

New topic. I think I am about to get diagnosed with a whole new kind of cancer, one with a worse prognosis than metastatic breast cancer. FRIGGIN HELL! To defy mbc statistics, to be NEAD and a few weeks away from FIVE YEARS WITH LIVER METS and now get ANOTHER CANCER? FRIGGIN HELL!

Thank you. There is a time for swearing. It says that, doesn’t it? In Ecclesiastes?

edj3

There's definitely a time for swearing, ShetlandPony, and today's that time.

candy-678

Shetland-- I am sooo sorry to read your post. Cancer is the shittest disease. What happened?? If you don't want to explain here, that is ok. Or you can PM me anytime.

Betrayal

ShetlandPony: Sorry to hear your news and agree that you are entitled to swear.

mara51506

Oh no Shetland Pony, I am so sorry to hear this. You were one of the people that encouraged me early on to fight through your posts to other people. I cannot imagine what you are going through. Serious hugs and my good wishes are being sent to you.

runor

Shetland, I hope to god this is NOT the case and that whatever is going on with you is not more cancer. My god. Enough already with this friggin cancer.

Enjoying the 'we have cancer' debate. Do we or don't we, that is the question!

Here's how I view it. Birth and death are solitary experiences. While there may be witnesses and helpers in attendance, only one person is born and only one person dies. I think it is fair for marriage partners to say 'we are in this together', but at the end of the whole thing one of those partners will never go home again and one will. "We' will not die together. The we ends there.

Our families are collateral damage. The cancer bomb was aimed at us, but it blew the hell out of everything as it landed and those close by were hit with flying shrapnel and likely also injured. WE were the target and most likely have sustained fatal injuries, but everyone got knocked over and shook up.

My husband says, " Runor has breast cancer. I am taking her to radiation treatment next month. I will go to all her appointments with her. WE will get through whatever happens to her." I am, at the beginning, middle and end, recognized as an individual person with an individual life. I have a name. MY experiences are mine, valid, personal. I get to own them. He is my mate. He does what he can to pick up the pieces that I no longer can carry. We are enduring together what I alone am suffering. His burden is his own and unique. But it is NOT breast cancer. It is not lymphedema. It is not daily pain. It is not medication or surgical side effects. What he is experiencing is its own, separate hell. But that is his and mine is mine and we are recognizing each other but not BEING each other.

For me, for the way I navigate life, WE does not work. It is attached (in my opinion) to a certain condescension. A certain status one bestows upon oneself. That's why it's called The Royal We - the queen gets to use it because she is granted that authority. The rest of us? Not so much. We is used correctly when a couple makes joint decisions. We bought a pool. We went to Mexico. We won the lottery. But cancer is not a joint decision that anyone chooses. It is a shit bomb that is aimed at ONE person but damages everyone. WE try to survive while SHE goes through this hell. The distinction is subtle yet enormous. (good talk everyone!)

wrenn

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Shetland Pony, I'm so sorry! I hope you can find strength for a new Ned. HUGS

JCSLibrarian

Exactly! Very well said, Runor.

Spookiesmom

👍👍

Beesie

Shetland, I hope this turns out to be a false alarm and you are not diagnosed with this other cancer. The whole frigging diagnosis process is hell and I am so sorry you are going through this.

Runor, very well put. I agree completely.

Anonymous

Thank you to those who replied to my July 8 post about my sister.

Last Monday she had the double mastectomy and Fallopian tubes and ovaries removed. She's doing remarkably well; even her surgeon asked her if she really had surgery. I had to remind her that she needs to take it easy.

As I write this, I forgot to ask her if her surgical bandages will be removed by the time I get there.

Anyway, I'm off to visit her early morning this Friday. Looking forward to seeing her but I hope I don't cry. I've only been with her once in the last five years, when she flew in for four days when I had my lumpectomy.

Thanks again for your lovely expressions of concern.

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Viewfinder: Me alegra saber que tu hermana está bien y espero que también estés más tranquila. Me imagino que será difícil para ti no llorar en esta reunión, ¡no has estado con tu hermana en mucho tiempo! ¡Te deseo unos días dulces con ella, a pesar de las circunstancias! ABRAZOS

AliceBastable

Shetland, sending you positive thoughts, and all my massive arsenal of swear words should you need them. I hope you don't need them, ever.

Anonymous

Muchas gracias, Yndorian1, eres tan dulce. Gracias a Dios por Google Translate. ¡Abrazos a ti también!

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Viewfinder: I did not realize that I had published in Spanish! I guess two languages are too much for my chemo brain! Lol😊

Anonymous

ShetlandPony, my heart goes out to you. I, too, hope this turns out to be a false alarm

Betrayal

Yndorian1: Thanks for the Spanish refresher. It is nice to know that even though my ability to converse has decreased to nil over the years that I am still able to read and understand it. Muchas gracias.

Anonymous

Yndorian, no need to apologize. Like I said, with Google translate, it's easy to convert one language to another. I admire people who know more than one language. I wish I did.

hapa

I need to vent about my husband. We recently had our pool remodeled. It needed to be replastered, but beyond that it was really tacky and looked like something out of trailer park, and so I took this opportunity to have it nicely remodeled so that our backyard would be a nice place to spend time. Travertine pavers, water feature, BBQ island, the whole nine yards. I used one of the more expensive contractors because they had good reviews, and frankly I think they were worth the extra $ because I didn't have to micromanage the contractor; we made a plan at the beginning, and they stuck to it, and they didn't leave a bunch of collateral damage - everything was put back the way it started, which is a huge pet peeve of mine whenever I hire someone work around the house. It wasn't cheap, but I paid for it out of my own funds, we have never combined accounts because we've always wanted to be able to spend our own money without having to worry that the other was planning to do something else with that money.

My husband made some comment about not wanting another $5k project to turn into a $30k project. I was like "wtf"? I didn't get upset at that, though it was obviously an attack on my decision to remodel the pool instead of just replastering it. I asked him why he was upset about it and he said "never mind, I guess we'll just work longer." Again, wtf? "Well now that you've spent all that money, we'll have to retire later".

OH MY FUCKING GOD I was ready to jump down his throat. We are on track to retire in 11 years or less, when I'm 53 and he's 45. Forty-fucking-five! And it's all no thanks to him! Last I checked, I've saved at least SIX TIMES as much as he has towards our retirement. And the only reason he's saved as much as he has is because I paid for EVERYTHING - and I mean literally EVERYTHING - while he was screwing around in grad school for SIX freaking YEARS, and paid cash for our house so we don't have any debt. I worked an extremely stressful job while he complained about grad school being so stressful, though he admits that he spent most of his time in the lab actually playing video games and not working towards his thesis. In fact, if he can have as much money saved when he is my age as I have now, THAT IS ALL WE WOULD HAVE TO DO TO RETIRE. It would be enough!

Secondly, I MAY NOT EVEN MAKE IT TO RETIREMENT!!! I have high risk of recurrence and frankly I'll be amazed if I'm still cancer free by the time I'm 53. So forgive me if I'd rather enjoy some of my hard earned cash how instead of saving it so he and whatever bimbo he marries after I'm dead can be deadbeats.

Third, even if we have the money to retire, and if I'm still alive when we get there, unless something changes in the health insurance landscape, I'm not retiring anyway!

Fourth, he bought a new car recently that he LITERALLY COULD NOT AFFORD! Yeah, he had to ask me for money to help him buy his new car, which he didn't even need since his old one still worked, but since I got a new car he decided he wanted one too. I, on the other hand, replaced a car that had literally died on the highway with a car that 1) I could pay for myself and 2) was about 40% less expensive that what he bought. And I get about 3x the gas mileage. I have no idea what he has been doing with is money, or if he actually has the money invested somewhere and was too much of a tightwad to spend it when he could just ask me for money. And BTW, this car of his cost a LOT more than our goddamn pool (which was not $30k btw, but he wouldn't know since he didn't pay for it)!

And finally, he does none of the retirement planning! I do all of it, and with incomplete information since he won't give me access to his accounts and every time I ask him what his balances are his answer is his standard dumb-faced "I don't know". Like, he can't even give me a ballpark figure! So where the fuck does he get the idea that I'm fucking up our retirement plan? Certainly not from any of the projections he's doing, because he's not doing any. But I am, and I assure you we can spare the money for the pool without disrupting our financial plan, which is why I was ok with spending it, just like we could spare the money for his freaking car. But I almost feel like this is beside the point.

How freaking entitled can he be??? Retirement wouldn't even be on his radar if it weren't for me. He would be saddled with a mortgage and car loan at the very least, and probably student loans on top of that. Did I mention that I got him all three of the jobs he's ever had? And that my mom gifts us more money every year than I spent on the goddamn pool? And that I spent most of my 20s living on a shoestring budget and most of my 30s stressed to the max at work to build our financial security? I'm sorry if this just sounds like a bunch of white people problems, or if it seems like I'm being an asshole for playing the I make more money card on my husband. I have never held that over his head, ever, not once in our relationship. But for him to complain to me that he's going to have to work until he's 45.3 instead of retiring when he's 45 because I had the gall to spend some of my own money when he obviously has no problem spending it is just more than I can handle. He needs to worry more about what HE is doing to get him to retirement, not what I'm doing; I think I've already done enough. God help him if he EVER asks me to help him pay for anything again.

edj3

I'm pissed on your behalf. That STINKS.

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Hapa: I think I would be so angry that I would not let him get close to my damn pool!

RosieRed

hapa - that type of comment would earn a night on the couch for hubby.

I understand the logic of keeping separate accounts, but don’t understand that there is no transparency about how much your hubby has saved up or balance in his checking account or any investments he may have. That would make me a bit nervous

edj3

Agree w/ RosieRed. My husband and I have separate accounts, always have and always will. But we have FULL visibility to each other's accounts because at the end of the day, it is our money. We just keep the banking and bookkeeping separate.

Seriously steamed on your behalf, hapa.

runor

Perhaps he needs to enjoy the new pool. With a drink. Or six. And slip. Oh, how unfortunate. I hope you know where the life insurance policy is.

ShetlandPony

Thank you to everyone who has offered support. And for your arsenal, Alice. My oncologist appears to think ILC being sneaky and going to weird places is likelier than a new cancer. Either one would be awful. When ILC starts marching down your digestive tract it is NOT GOOD. May get answers in around ten days; waiting for another endoscopy with biopsy. Carry on with rants, ladies.

Betrayal

I agree with RosieRed's comments about transparency and Yndorian's about letting him in the pool. Our personal philosophy for purchases has always been that if we can't afford it, we don't buy it. Perhaps you need to stop funding his purchases?

edj3

ShetlandPony will be keeping you in my thoughts during this wait.

hapa

You know, I'm not mad about paying for his car, never had a problem with it, it's a much nicer car than his old one and we could afford it. I'm mad that he's okay with spending my money but not with me spending my money. I don't even know why he would start an argument with me about money because we make plenty, we have plenty, and I have a long track record of generating income for us, saving, investing, and being responsible about spending while he does not, who is he to be questioning my financial judgement?

Shetland - You've been in my thoughts these last few days. Sorry about your recent troubles. I hope you get answers and a plan soon.