"I'm sorry, your spouse is going to die...

mikeyboy

My wife has been faced with this twice. Both times I survived. I am currently fighting the second time. We live everyday like it our last together, because you just never know. Great advise for everyone!

That is great advice! I will be saying a prayer for you!

Thank you, all is going great!

toysbigkid

I was given 3 months to live and was told to get things in order, Hell No! Not Me! I'm still here 12 years later.

I have lots of Attidude.

Jude1064

I heard those words on August 5, 2005. My husband was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrigs). He fought for 11 1/2 months before he passed away. The only "good" thing about it was that we had a little time to say the things we needed to say. Going thru that has taught me that life really is short and worrying about small stuff is a waste of time.

EvilPink

I can't read through 6 pages of discussion here but, from the ones I have read - I really don't see why this is so taboo to some. Well, I guess because society as a whole considers the speaking of death as something to be avoided. I worked in hospice care for 2 years and my FIL is currently on hospice and I can't tell you how many families hear those words and think the same thoughts. What do I do? What do you say? How do you act?

Or they get upset and feel guilty because they see their loved one deteriorating and pray to God that He just take them now. Or they want to run away and scream. Or they become resentful. Then they hate themselves for thinking such thoughts but all of those things are perfectly NORMAL feelings that nearly everyone goes through. Especially if you've had to take on the roll as a full-time caregiver. Watching your love become skeletal, no longer be able to eat or use the bathroom properly and have to change them, to watch the labored breathing as death comes closer. Unless you're there - you have no right to judge someone and say that they must have never loved the person in the first place. It's an incredible task that you'll never understand the magnitude of unless you're thrust into the position. It's easy to sit back and say someone is terrible for thinking or doing certain things in that situation but I would guarantee that any one of us put in that situation would do something that others would find questionable. It's an incredibly emotional time and the things that come out are sometimes not pretty...but then again, neither is death.

I've been there, not with a spouse but with other family members. I've learned a few things after doing this more than once and one thing is that you cherish the time. Even if a doctor has crappy bedside manner in breaking the news; to me - knowing, even if it's only a very short time ahead, is a blessing. Yes, you're angry, upset, hurt, scared, and a myriad of others but it still gives you time to prepare. Say those last words that many do not get to say in unexpected deaths. Those things that you always take for granted and believe there's enough time to do later. There's time for final wishes to be honored, for families to settle affairs rather than being stuck in probate court for months or even years. And, it's not just about the spouse or family member; it's about the one who is dying - it gives them time to come to terms with their passing, put their lives in perspective, find their after-life beliefs, and leave in peace rather than torment.

missjoci

I work in hospice and see a lot of different people deal with these situations a lot of different ways. As for myself, I would be with that person as much as physically possible while still maintaining sanity and sleep...as well as letting them come to terms with it themselves.

I'm glad that the doctors were wrong with you! That's such a blessing.

Pebble321

I think EvilPink has summed it up - "cherish the time."

We lost my mum last year and the last few months when she was in hospital/hospice care were terribly hard but also really special times. Just spending time, chatting, sitting silently, reading the paper, doing her nails, wheeling her down to the beach to look for dolphins (she was in the most beautiful location you could imagine!) leaves me feeling contented, knowing that I was THERE for her, just as she has always been there for me.

amivox

I have heard those words, 12 years ago in april I lost my first love and the father
of my children to cancer, he was 38 yrs old.
What did i do ? I honestly don't remember I saw everything thru a haze and pondered
why my neighbors were mowing there grass why kids were playing basket ball and
laughing and birds were singing Didnt they know my Bill was dying ! I remeber a pic nic
and a butterfly exhibit I remember screaming into a towel in my bathroom for god to
take him cause i couldnt do it anymore and the guilt I still feel for that request.
Fast forward almost 13 years my kids are grown and parents, my husband of almost 10yrs
will be 44 and after surgery Chemo and Radiation over the past 10 months I now await those words again
What if ? I hope you never get your answer........

I am seriously crying right now. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to not hear it once, but twice.

coliema

I would be absolutely devastated.

It's actually making me feel sick right now, just reading the topic.

My fiance means so much to me, I wouldn't know what I would ever do without him.

amivox

If so many women are so unhappy and wouldnt feel a thing if their man died. That really scares the crap out of me. People ask me all the time why i never married, next time, im gonna show them this thread.

Not all women are like that. At all. A girl I used to work with was with a man who got in trouble for pot and he was here on a Visa, so he was deported. She found out she was pregnant with his child shortly after. During the deportation, he developed Lukemia. He was then sent back to the U.S. for cancer treatment in Texas. She flew there every weekend to see him. She even married him in the hospital so that he would know how much she loved him and how much he meant to her. Her conviction and love for him has always been something that I have found to be so bittersweet and beautiful. He went into remission and was able to return to Illinois and live with her and their new daughter, but a few months later, his cancer came back and they started chemo again, but it wasn't working. He passed shortly after. My friend was a wreck. There were days where I would insist on her letting me do her work so that she could work out all of the insurance stuff and plan his funeral. She tried to stay strong, but there were times where she just couldn't do it. She would break down at work in tears. She tattooed his name across her arm, and she still laments over his passing, even though she has a new man in her life. She didn't move on fast, she let herself grieve, and I admire her so much for how she handled it... I also still cry sometimes thinking about all the pain she went through while he was dealing with the cancer. He was only 22, and she was only 21 when he passed.

ShellyMacchi

~feels the need to add~

There are some people who face such news with what I've heard termed gallows humour. God knows at the point of diagnosis and the first year we freaked out more people with some of the things we said, and honestly still say from time to time.

It was, and remains, part of our way of coping, so I do understand why some of the flip comments have been made. Sometimes it's hard to seriously think about something that would be terribly painful so we joke it away. And sometimes there is the thought 'If we don't take it seriously, maybe it won't be'.

this *S*