Debra,
You will never forget this time. Your feelings, his pain, the way your life centers around cancer from dark to dark everyday, BUT.....

I always felt like the days passed faster for me than for him because I was running a million miles an hour to take care of everything and all he did was lay in that bed unable to do anything. I just kept telling myself that tomorrow would be here soon and to keep on trucking.

As for your fear of not making it through... you will. What will happen is that when you begin to feel like you are right there on the edge of where you feel like you cannot step another inch forward, something inside will take over and you will bring it up and use it to make it through.

I can't tell you what that thing is because it is different for each of us but caregivers just DO and you WILL.

The crying is normal. Although my husband never cried in front of me I heard him from time to time and I got so good at it that I could be in some totally happy environment and just cry out of the blue. When I was driving down the road, standing in a line at the store, watching TV and movies became impossible for a while because it took so little to trigger emotional reactions.

Over time, after treatments, you will find that the sensitivity will relax a little. To be honest though, we are almost 2 years since treatments and I still have problems watching TV and movies sometimes. I have accepted that it takes a long time to recover from cancer txs, not just for the patient, but for the caregivers as well. It is just a one day at a time kinda thing.

Finally, the end of rad txs is so difficult. After 6-7 weeks of the daily trek down to the rad center and the pain and misery that the patient is in it is not surprising that many want to quit. My husband tried everything to stop me from taking him down there. He almost pushed me to the point of picking him up myself and shoving him into the car. At the rad center it was a fight. A literal fight to get him on the table for the last 5 txs. I had to coach, play cheerleader, enlist the personnel at the rad center and yes, even threaten once. But I did it because in the back of my mind was the constant nagging voice always reminding me that this is something that MUST BE COMPLETED. Has to be done! And why go through all of that pain only to quit when he could see the finish line? The life threatening implications if he did not complete the radiation I couldn't even consider.

So all of this long winded rambling is simply my way of offering to you that the view changes everyday. Enjoy each moment, work yourself through the other moments and help him to hang on. Once the rads are finished he will start feeling better rapidly. Before you know it things will get better and all of this will be like a bad memory.

Best to you both!
Cindy