hospitals

My Grief Diet and Health

Randy MannLeave a comment

Going through the grief process, your health and diet change, at least it did for me. When Sally was diagnosed with cancer in October of 2016, it didn’t take long for my weight to drop about 10 pounds (4.5 kgs). During the care-giving, her passing and the grieving, my weight has dropped even further.

With the incredible stress of the situation, I eat just enough to keep up my strength. I’m amazed I didn’t get a cold or flu during the process. And now, my weight is the lowest since I was a kid in middle school. At last check, I was down from my peak of 175 pounds (79 kgs) to 138 (63 kgs), but the loss is not as fast as it once was.

I’ve been eating a little more, but the anxiety is still high. Even at rest, my heart would race. Others who have been going through a similar situation tell me that I’m burning so many calories from the mental stress, don’t count on gaining too much weight in the near future.

The grieving and the emotional roller-coaster takes its toll. I see the tremendous stress in my face. It’s amazing, people that saw me on my visit back to Idaho say how good I look. They’re probably being nice and supportive. I know that I’ve looked better.

I found out the hard way that my body can’t take the physical strain like it used to. My friend, Kristine, had me come to her gym and participate in her workouts. Kristine is a little older than me and I figured this wouldn’t be a problem. And, oh man, I was wrong.

About half-way through, what I would call a light to moderate workout, I had to stop. My chest got extremely tight, pain was shooting down my arm, looking pale and I had to sit down. At that moment, I was thinking this was a heart attack. Honestly, as I was sitting there wondering, there was no fright. Instead I thought, “If I’m having a heart attack, this would be embarrassing.”

Instead, it was one of those conditions when the heart reaches it’s maximum beats and starts to skip. I’ve now learned to make workouts more “steady” and not put too much pressure on my body. This has worked out a little better.

The weight loss has my friend, Tom, very concerned. He’s been pleading with me to go to the doctor. I keep telling him I’m fine and it’s not necessary. I’m fairly certain it’s the periods of anxiety, which I am working on.

It’s not a logical thing, but we’re not dealing with logic as the emotional drive still dominates. One reason is that I spent countless hours at cancer centers, blood centers, hospitals, chemotherapy and other centers watching my poor wife go through the agony of treatments. Right now, I just don’t want to go near any type of medical center unless it’s absolutely necessary and right now, it’s not.

However, my friend Tom is probably right. If you are going through the grieving process and something isn’t right, then it’s a good idea to see a doctor. Don’t be like me, stubborn and insist that everything is fine. And, try to eat as best as you can.

Cancer Finds A Way

Randy MannLeave a comment

When dealing with cancer and treatments, it’s like an emotional roller-coaster that doesn’t stop. When my wife, Sally, went through the rigorous treatments of 6 chemotherapies and 32 radiations within 7 weeks, there was hope that her Stage 4 vulvar cancer was going to at least be contained, but there was a strong chance it would return. We were hoping for years, not much sooner.

At the time, things were looking promising. She actually went back to work in early March, but it wasn’t going to last. After about 3 weeks, Sally was starting to experience pain in her abdomen. She wasn’t scheduled for a scan for another several weeks, but the doctors pushed through a new scan, something the insurance company didn’t want to do.

Waiting for the results was agonizing. In the waiting area, one of the doctors came out and said that her main doctor would call her. The look on his face told me that it wasn’t good. The next day, her cancer doctor called and was crying on the phone. Her cancer had spread into her lungs, spleen and bone. I talked with her separately and the doctor said that the love of my life only had months to live.

At the doctor’s office, her doctor mentioned that they were going to try another treatment. But, I’ll never forget what she said to Sally, “cancer finds a way.” I’m sure that many others can relate to this as I’ve heard other stories of cancer returning to people, even ones I know indirectly.

Sally went through two more brutalizing treatments and the lymphedema got worse again. After a month, the doctors decided to stop the chemotherapy as the cancer continued to spread. A few months was now turning into weeks.

My sister, Susan, flew out from Atlanta to help me take care of Sally. We had no family in Idaho as they were spread out. I couldn’t have gone through this part of the journey without her.

I was already going through the grieving process, but I mostly did it alone. I thought I could handle what was coming, but one of my good friends, Bryan, told me that it was going to hit me very hard when she passes. He was right. From my experience, there is nothing that can prepare you for the loss of the great love of your life, even when you know it’s coming.

The picture is one of the last ones that was taken with the both of us.

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Doctors and Treatments. A New Way of Life.

Randy MannLeave a comment

When a loved one gets sick, especially a long-term illness, you find yourself becoming very familiar with hospitals, doctors’ office, pharmacies, physical therapy offices and other places along that line.

When my beloved Sally was diagnosed with vulvar cancer, we had to adjust our lives and schedules for her treatments. The strength she had for this was amazing. The doctors said the treatment was going to be intense and were uncertain if she was going to be able to so much in a short period of time. But she did, with dignity and grace.

In a span of 7 weeks, during the holiday season of 2016, she had to go through 6 chemo therapies and 32 radiation treatments. In addition to those treatments, there were numerous trips to the pharmacy, a trip to the emergency room when her fever spiked from the chemotherapy, plus other trips that had to be made for blood tests, blood transfusions and magnesium supplements and other procedures that I can barely remember. She rarely complained, and I didn’t either. You do what you have to do.

Watching what the treatments did to her was hard to say the least. She developed a new side effect called lymphedema. We never heard of that one until her legs and feet swelled to the point she could barely walk. It’s a blockage with the lymph system due to the treatment. Physical therapy and constant massages was the only thing that could be done. No medication is available for that condition.

Going to the doctor’s office for checkups was difficult. I literally could not sit in the room when she was being examined, even though the doctor said that I could. I would go outside to the waiting room and sit and wait.

I remember one occasion when one of the doctors pointed at me to come over. I braced myself for the worst, but at that time, he informed me that the tumor was shrinking, and things were looking better. That’s the one thing with hospitals and doctor’s visits. There are good days and very bad ones.

There was one trip to the emergency room when they did x-rays. There was a blood clot in her leg and a spot on her lung. I worried about that spot, but there wasn’t too much concern for that at the time as the focus was the area for the cancer treatment.

I remember the trips, sometimes two days a week, to an office that specializes and tests for blood thickness. They were amazing and wonderful to Sally. They were very saddened when I had to break the horrible news.

I will say that practically all the medical people that treated my wife were extremely kind and supportive. There were a few days when she was feeling worse than usual and the medical facility would take her in right away. Sally had me bake cookies for them during the holidays. I’m not much of a baker, but I was glad to do it. At least the cookies tasted pretty good.

On her last chemotherapy treatment in late December of 2016, at least I thought it was before the cancer spread, the nurses came out and played the song, “Hit the Road Jack.” I thought it was very cool.