There are a few people here (who know me well) that know all about this.
For the rest of you I will tell this sad story.
Something over twenty years ago, I met a beautiful lady, and the details of our meeting are not important right now, but eventually we became involved in a long relationship. Though we were never married we were always a "couple", always together.
Sometime in 2004 I seemed to sense that all was not right with Cathie but I really couldn't identify what IT was. And she was coughing, but her excuse was I'm a smoker and smokers cough.
Fast forward to May 2005, she is missing work, days at a time, severe headaches. After several doctors visits, testing and cat scans, it comes back, lung cancer. I was too numb to react. She was immediately hospitalized due to the headaches. There was a secondary brain tumor. Now brain surgery, immediately. She seemed fine after that, but that only lasted a week or two.
After that it was chemo and radiation, but it was hopeless. The cancer was Stage 4 (the most advanced, the worst for those of you lucky enough to not know) when it was discovered.
And the disease advanced quickly, she lost weight, lost her hair, lost her strength and lost her life.
She said to me that she felt the worst for me, I took her for every doctors visit, every chemo, every radiation, everything. As they say I was THE care giver. On December 18, late at night, I picked her up and carried her out of the house and placed her in the car. She couldn't walk down 4 steps and about 20 feet to the car in the driveway. I drove her to the hospital and I knew that she was never coming home again. I think that she knew it too.
From there on it is too horrible to describe. As if what you have already read is not bad enough. I will only say that there came a time when they couldn't give her enough morphine to keep her out of pain. I type this with tears in my eyes thinking of my lost love.
For those of you who still smoke, how lucky do you feel? Cathi never thought that this would happen to her. Her mother still smokes to this day, and has no significant health problems.
Think about how this illness affects the people who must care for those suffering from it. Do you want to do this to your family. Some cancers will occur no matter how well we care for ourselves.
But smoking just creates another level of risk.
I lost Cathi on December 28, 2005. At that point I was asking God to take her just to end the pain. The funeral was Dec 30, she was cremated on Dec 31. New Years Eve will be a sad reminder for me for many years to come. Cathi was 47 years old. She missed a large part of her life.
This is the first time I have told this in a public place.
I was and is difficult for me, and I hope that some people will get something useful from this.
If it is too disturbing or personal for too many people I will remove it ..... it was disturbing to sit here and type this.
Thanks for reading this far.
