Hey there,
I’ve been lurking on this forum for years, and honestly, I never imagined I’d be the one starting a thread, let alone being an active part of this community.
Basically, my husband—who, until just three months ago, didn't even know his blood type because he only ever saw his dentist—suddenly became an oncology patient, 100% disabled.
The man is 67, and back in August 2019, an ultrasound showed nothing but gallstones. He kept putting off the surgery, but finally, after some serious coaxing from me and a close friend of his who's a doctor, he decided to go for it. He went in to meet with the surgeon, and since it had been over a year since his last scan, the doc insisted on a new ultrasound. Well, you all know how nightmareish the waiting lists are around here—since my husband is a veteran, he was looking at a two-month wait, while the rest of us mere mortals were stuck looking at eight months at Osijek University Hospital—so we just scheduled him for an ultrasound at a private clinic the very next day for a cool $100 bucks.
Right after the ultrasound, the radiologist (who has been a good friend of MM for years, since Osijek is such a tight-knit community) looks at him and says, "Look, buddy, you've got a much bigger problem than just gallstones..." It was advanced-stage colon cancer. There wasn't a single symptom, nothing except maybe feeling a bit bloated after eating something heavy like chili or a thick stew.
....and that’s where it all starts... the beginning of the fight, or maybe the beginning of the end... I honestly don't know yet.
He was rushed into emergency surgery on the afternoon of November 22nd due to the threat of an ileus. After the procedure, the surgeon called me and just said, "Ma'am, it’s not good." He couldn't reconnect the bowel, so he had to put him on a colostomy bag. He has metastases in both sides of his liver (it's inoperable; the PET scan showed one lesion is 17cm long) and also in both lungs.
When I asked him how much time we actually had—was it 3 months? 6 months?—he just answered, "YES."
I honestly can't wrap my head around how rapidly he's physically wasting away. Even though he’s an incredibly intelligent, emotionally stable, and tough guy, and he’s fully aware of what's happening (though I hide the true severity from him; I'm still trying to convince him it's only Stage 2, even though it's clearly Stage 4), it's just devastating.
In the last three months, he's lost 25 kg. He went from 105 kg down to 80 kg; when I massage him, you can literally see his ribs.
He knows he has to eat, so he forces himself to do it. He’ll take an anti-nausea pill and then struggle through almost an entire portion of lunch.
I just can't come to terms with the fact that this terrible disease hit *him*. He is such a genuinely kind and positive person; everyone who knows him loves being around him, from little kids to the crankiest old men.
He handled the first two rounds of chemo (the infusion followed by 14 days of cytostatics) pretty well, but right after the third round, just the second day after the infusion, he was hit with this horrific hiccups. They came in short bursts every hour or two and lasted for four straight days. We tried everything, including Gas-X (which gave him maybe a couple of hours of relief), but nothing worked. It just finally stopped after four days, but it absolutely wrecked him. All the muscles in his abdomen are aching now—some of them even hurt just to touch. It's just awful.
I’ve been lurking on this forum for years, and honestly, I never imagined I’d be the one starting a thread, let alone being an active part of this community.
Basically, my husband—who, until just three months ago, didn't even know his blood type because he only ever saw his dentist—suddenly became an oncology patient, 100% disabled.
The man is 67, and back in August 2019, an ultrasound showed nothing but gallstones. He kept putting off the surgery, but finally, after some serious coaxing from me and a close friend of his who's a doctor, he decided to go for it. He went in to meet with the surgeon, and since it had been over a year since his last scan, the doc insisted on a new ultrasound. Well, you all know how nightmareish the waiting lists are around here—since my husband is a veteran, he was looking at a two-month wait, while the rest of us mere mortals were stuck looking at eight months at Osijek University Hospital—so we just scheduled him for an ultrasound at a private clinic the very next day for a cool $100 bucks.
Right after the ultrasound, the radiologist (who has been a good friend of MM for years, since Osijek is such a tight-knit community) looks at him and says, "Look, buddy, you've got a much bigger problem than just gallstones..." It was advanced-stage colon cancer. There wasn't a single symptom, nothing except maybe feeling a bit bloated after eating something heavy like chili or a thick stew.
....and that’s where it all starts... the beginning of the fight, or maybe the beginning of the end... I honestly don't know yet.
He was rushed into emergency surgery on the afternoon of November 22nd due to the threat of an ileus. After the procedure, the surgeon called me and just said, "Ma'am, it’s not good." He couldn't reconnect the bowel, so he had to put him on a colostomy bag. He has metastases in both sides of his liver (it's inoperable; the PET scan showed one lesion is 17cm long) and also in both lungs.
When I asked him how much time we actually had—was it 3 months? 6 months?—he just answered, "YES."
I honestly can't wrap my head around how rapidly he's physically wasting away. Even though he’s an incredibly intelligent, emotionally stable, and tough guy, and he’s fully aware of what's happening (though I hide the true severity from him; I'm still trying to convince him it's only Stage 2, even though it's clearly Stage 4), it's just devastating.
In the last three months, he's lost 25 kg. He went from 105 kg down to 80 kg; when I massage him, you can literally see his ribs.
He knows he has to eat, so he forces himself to do it. He’ll take an anti-nausea pill and then struggle through almost an entire portion of lunch.
I just can't come to terms with the fact that this terrible disease hit *him*. He is such a genuinely kind and positive person; everyone who knows him loves being around him, from little kids to the crankiest old men.
He handled the first two rounds of chemo (the infusion followed by 14 days of cytostatics) pretty well, but right after the third round, just the second day after the infusion, he was hit with this horrific hiccups. They came in short bursts every hour or two and lasted for four straight days. We tried everything, including Gas-X (which gave him maybe a couple of hours of relief), but nothing worked. It just finally stopped after four days, but it absolutely wrecked him. All the muscles in his abdomen are aching now—some of them even hurt just to touch. It's just awful.