We had another eventful few weeks. My wife is still recovering following her DVT and serious weight loss, and spends alot of time lying on the sofa in the lounge. Her food intake is really down, mainly through feeling sick after eating. This means alot of weight loss still, and she has very skinny arms and legs with an extremely swollen stomach are, where the cancer is.
She looks very frail and fragile, with her gaunt face, even when in clothes. Even after a short walk she has to pause, struggling for breath and trying to focus to ensure she isnt sick.
Then to top it off, our lounge ceiling then collapsed. I came downstairs at about 6 am to find water dripping from the ceiling onto the sofa. Luckily my friendly plumber called and by 7 the leak had been stopped, and a hole in the ceiling was letting nearly a bucket full of water out. This wasnt enough though.
At 8 that evening, I heard a cry from downstairs, and came down to this mess.
Thankfully (or not, depending on your viewpoint) it had just missed my mother-in-law, and similarly my wife had been safe. But there was broken plaster everywhere, damp all over the carpet, and it took an age to clean up.
A leaking toilet in let pipe must have been dripping for a long time. You could see where water had been soaked up by chipboard before heading onto the plaster board, and every bit of it was wet through. We borrowed some heaters and made it secure, and then waited for it to dry out.
It took a while, and the damp smell was horrendous. Thankfully the insurance approved the work, and we have been able to get a builder in to do the work. But you could see how far the water had spread across the ceiling as it dried out, yellow patches blooming all over. It was a very stressful experience.
This has thus restricted what my wife can do. She cant be in the lounge as the hole made it cold and slightly damp, and all our possessions from the lounge were in the other room downstairs, so she was stuck in the bedroom. At least the rest of us could go to school or work and get out. You realise how tough it can be when disabled and not able to easily go out by yourself.
Mentally it has been tough for us all. I feel at times that the world is against us, everything that can go wrong seems to go wrong. It is probably not true, but sometimes you would like to have a run of good news.
Coupled with a bad few weeks in work, my mental health has suffered. Motivation has gone, concentration has gone. It is like the stable foundation of home has been snatched away, and I am living on quicksand, never able to feel safe. My brain is fried – the damage on top of the last few years has properly destroyed something. I still paint a face on and try to make the best of the day, when really what I want is to be back in a time when my life seemed secure, when we had a future to look forward to. I crave that stability, and that hope.
I am sure that things maybe are not as bleak as I feel. The black dog on my shoulder says otherwise, and he is the one I listen to. It is hard to get out of the depressive mindset, but I am trying. I have a spin bike to try and get fit (following this post https://mywifehascancer.blog/archives/760) but need to keep up the motivation to do it. It is very easy to decide it is too cold.
I have also finally taken up guitar lessons, and am working my way through the easiest Beatles tunes. It is slow progress, but again I find it a good way to turn off my mind, relax and float downstream. Again the main problem is my motivation, and I am having to really push myself to not sit flicking through my phone rather than doing something productive.
Finally on a Beatles note, they have released a single based on an old John Lennon track. I really enjoyed it, and hope you will too
Thanks
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