Coping With Caregiving

My 54-year husband is undergoing treatment for a mass on his pelvis diagnosed as Stage 4 cancer. It is extremely frustrating because if his doctors had properly diagnosed his symptoms and found the source (liver cancer), he might have a fighting chance.

He fell while under outpatient radiation treatment in a hotel room provided in the city where is being treated…fractured his hip. He starting losing weight rapidly 18 months ago, then had suspicious bruising on his spine and lower ribs, all symptoms of bone cancer we have now been told, but the doctors at the local affiliated government clinic said it was “compressed vertabrae” and after months of Oxycodin treatment (their answer for just about everything), they sent him for pain management therapy consisting of an injection into his spine through the tailbone area. That gave him relief for 2 days and then it came back with a vengeance. His pain was debilitatating by that point and he was bedfast.

Then depression set in. His mental health doctor suggested taking him to the hospital 2 hrs away for mental health treatment. The doctors there did an MRI and found the cancer had started in his liver, went into his back and was in his pelvis. Still waiting for word on how they plan to treat (if they do) the fracture. I don’t think he will ever be home again and traveling that far is difficult due to my working daily. My hat is off to anyone who has to sit and watch their loved one suffer. Particularly sad when it seems the disease was let grow while complacent physicians and a government run organization let it happen.