Dealing with Two Illnesses
Hello, I'm a 53 year old women, and a breast cancer survivor for 4 going on 5 years, all started when my husband and I desided to moved to Boston to start a new life there due to the fact that we had have some downs in our marriege and we wanted to try to make it work since we being married for 23 years with two kids.
I, moved with my daughter, and my husband desided to stay behind until a settled some legal matters. Every morning I will make my daughter breakfast.One morning, she woke up to find that there was no breakfast waiting for. Concerned, she went into my room and found me "sleeping."Apperantely, she noted that I was not breathing. After a couple of minutes, I finnaly took a breath and woke up. I do not remeber what happened that morning.
I started to noticed that I would wake up soaked in sweet in the middle of the night,with an outside tempeture of 3 degree below zero, this happend for about a month.
Couple of weeks later, my husband came to visit. While he was hugging me I felt a sharp pain in my right breast, I screemed and ran to a morror to check what happend. I 've then notice a nickle sized bruise. i panicked and asked my husband to come and check it out, he did not take it as seriously as I did, the next day the bruise was a bit bigger I went to the hospital and they examed me and referred me to a specialist. When I went to the specialist he found out that first i had "a little bit" of cancer and two days the specialist found "even more cancer." This time it was a lot of cancer. Apparentely I was in denial, at that time I was not in shock.
My husband went back to Miami. Two weeks later, I decided to go and discuss the situation with my husband , I did not want to worried hin before I saw him in person, when I got there, I found him with some one I recognized. It was someone we helped raise. He divorced me and married her.
I went back to Boston to have my surgery, At that time, I was so hurt, I could not tell what hurt more, dealing with my cancer or my broken heart. I had a painful biopsy, later a lumpseptomy and ending with mastectomy. I went into my first series a chemotherapy but was not able to complete it because it got me extremely sick. The neurologist, my kids, and I decided to stop it and take a 20% risk of reocurrence. I did not have medical insurance at the time. So, two days after my surgery, I went back to work, but they would not allow me to work. So, I got a job in a factory and started to work. My employers had no clue that I had just had surgery. The wound got infected and I was admitted back into the hospital. I couldn't afford to pay for rent or anything, I was forced to live with a friend. She was kind enough to accept my daughter, as well. That whole time, my "ex" had no communication with either me or the kids. I helped him come to U.S. and become who he is now, I remember my parents going through so much because they did not agreed with me marrying him, but I went over there heads and did it anyway.He did not care about the kids after that, he did not know whether or not the kids ate or not, maybe what he did to me does not affect me as much as the fact that he forgot about the kids.I have not been able to overcome that this whole time. I'm having a lot of trouble forgetting. Putting behind half of my life and moving on is not as easy as it seems. I became a very lonely and isolated person, I do not know how to start over by myself, I do not feel like going out, and have lost complete interest in enjoy myself. All that there is in my mind is a flash memory of the moment that I found them together. This have affected my life and the lives of my children's significantly in every aspec. I'm now a single mother strugling in life, with my kids, one in college and the other that could not affort to go to college because of our financial matter. We're currrently struggling to put my daughter through college. I also worried about the time that I will not longer be on treatment and being at risk after finishing it, of reocurrence of the cancer. This is just a brief story, there was a lot more to it, but I did not want to bother you guys with the whole story. I would really like your feedback, that may help me in some way, it would mean a lot to me.
Comments
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Survivor, I am so sorry to hear your story. What a difficult time you've had! It breaks my heart that you've had to deal with so many personal problems on top of fighting breast cancer. Sometimes it seems like we just can't catch a break!
From difficulties I've had in my own life, I've come to realize that time really does help the healing process. Over time I think the pain of your husband's betrayal will lessen. However, I am a firm believer in prayer and in seeking counsel. If you are able to find a therapist who you can talk to I think it would be very helpful. If money is a problem with getting counseling, many churches have free or heavily discounted counseling services that they offer. Maybe you should check out a local church to get some support and encouragement. The isolation, depression, and fear you're facing are all very real and very heavy. I think it would be so good for you to share this with someone in real life, who can support you and give you ways to cope with your pain.
You will be in my thoughts and prayers. God has a great plan for you and He loves you so much. I pray that through all of this yuckiness, you will feel Him around you holding you close.
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Hello survivor, that you are! You continue to hang in there and seek some help from a counselor or church as previous mentioned. My heart goes out to you, You are a warrior. Hold on to God he will get you through this, and you will be a testimony. I am praying for you. It is not easy to stay positive in these situations, but let's try to shame the devil, because he wants to bring us down. I have my trials too, but I am trying to be positive only with the help of Jesus.
Take care,God Bless you,
Audrey
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It can help to have friends who have something in common with you - so first maybe a group of breast cancer survivors. Sometimes these women can rise up and seperate heaven from hell and go through hell at the same time! Seek out others who might be able to understand your situation. Your children will be OK (yes I speak from experience) they have a great Mom who loves them enough to make sure they get a good education. He will be dealt with in time and it won't be pretty either.. take care of yourself and your children.. you've done well to keep life going through all of this and you are not alone!
One more thing - the Komen center nearest you might have some available help for you and you won't know that without calling them (also the Cancer Institutes).. reach out to someone and soon - the human soul is strong but sometimes it needs a bit of help.. God bless!
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