Hello everyone.
Tomorrow it will be eight months since I lost my darling husband to this horrible disease. I haven't been active here at all over the last number of months. I have been reading posts but somehow never had the energy to reply - I am sorry. I am hoping to be more active here again this year and hopefully I will not only be able to see how you are all doing and learn a lot from you guys but also be helpful at times by sharing from my own experience and knowledge.
So how have I been?
Well, over all I think I have been doing okay.
From May 2018 when my husband passed away until 15 October 2018 when I went on a trip to Malaysia to visit my brother there, it was very difficult. I didn't sleep well; I found eating, particularly preparing and having meals on my own, very difficult and lost some weight; I fought against feelings of pointlessness and hopelessness and depression. The way I have always coped with difficulty was to work as hard as possible; so, in this situation as well, I was doing an awful lot of work.
The trip to Malysia was a turning point. I think it was because over there where everything is so completely differen I didn't have much time to think of Paul and, what had become almost like an obsession, of the last night in hospital. And when I returned to Dublin, I found that I was more resilient; the tears still came and the low feelings still came but I found them to be more manageable somehow. I reduced my workload a little and spent more time with friends and with meditation and just generally self-care.
Coming up to Christmas I felt mostly numb. I remember walking around among all the happy people who were preparing for Christmas thinking, "Yes, that's them but not me this year".
I went to Germany for Christmas and New Year. And this two-week break was another turning point. Over there with my parents and my brother - who had joined us from Malysia as well - I felt of course sad and was thinking of and missing Paul a lot, but again the feelings were a little lighter, a little more bearable. And when I came back to Ireland, I really felt okay about things. As I said to many people over Christmas: I think for most part of my life now I can say that I have reached a point where missing Paul terribly and at the same time moving forward with my own life are no longer a contradiction. And yet, as I was sitting here yesterday and spent yet another lonely Sunday, I suddenly remembered our Christmas three years ago - our first Christmas in this home - and how happy we were and how cheerful and playful and how much laughter there was and how little knowledge, or at least thought of, what was to come and I couldn't stop crying for hours with a pain that I felt throughout my entire being, physical and emotional and mental and spiritual, thinking how unfair it was that we had only had such a short period of time together... But I think the difference to a couple of months ago is that now I know that no matter how absolutely dreadful it feels at the time, these feelings will pass. It is like we get pockets of intense pain, just as much as we can handle at the time, and then move on from that until the next one comes.
What I have been trying to do for months now is to bring Reiki into the cancer hospital where Paul was treated and where he passed away. I feel that if anything good can come of his death at all, it is that I can go into those hospitals and work with cancer patients. Reiki is very calming, relaxing and soothing, and it helps people who are faced with a very difficult, often terminal, diagnosis by reducing stress, anxiety, agitation, by improving sleep patterns, sometimes appetite, and in general the outlook on life. Unfortunately, I get nothing but silence from the hospital, apart from Paul's two consultants saying that they feel it would be great to offer Reiki to their patients. But I will keep fighting. At the moment I am waiting to hear back from Ray McDermott, Paul's main consultant in the last couple of years, who promised me to write back to me about the idea but of course he did not.
I have often been asked about my reasons for wanting to do this. Well, firstly I want to do it because I do know from my own experience with patients how helpful and effective Reiki as a complementary therapy is for cancer patients. Secondly, I am a very caring person and I kind of feel that now that Paul is no longer with me I could use the energy that I gave into caring for him to other people. Thirdly, I feel that I need to work somewhere where my work is really needed and I feel that particularly people nearing the end of their lives need to be able to use whatever tools are out there to maintain a good quality of life.
I don't know if this is a bit over the top and of course you don't have to read my letter to Professor Armstrong, the director of St. Luke's Hospital, which I wrote months ago and, needless to say, except for a short letter expressing his condolences I haven't heard back from him. I will post the letter in a different post and I will simply call it "Letter To Professor Armstrong". See what you think and I am very happy about any feedback. I will be sending this letter again and again, maybe even to the minister for health if necessary.
Love and hugs to all of you, stay strong and do everything you can and need to do to stay with us for as long as possible and with as good a quality of life as possible!
Mel.
what will be next for me
PSA creeping up to 2.8 over the course eight months, next step?
