Well I still have not been able to get Dan to come and post on the site, but he listens when I tell him what I learn and sometimes I'll just print out items and leave them for him to read on his own.
My question/concern right now is he is so angry!!! I believe that is a normal part of this process, but I ache for him and want to help. I've mentioned before that we own our own business and missing so much work for the 4 surgeries and bazillion doctor's appointments the past 30 days and then treatment starts tomorrow so we know appointments every day for a while and then he'll start feeling to bad to go to work. And the big part - he has Cancer... So - any insight on how to be thre for him as he is in the anger phase. Anything I should say or not say or just step back, quietly hold his hand and let him get through this part on his own???
Thanks gang!

Dealing with the anger is a hard one,but you have pretty much hit the nail on the head.Step back ,but be there whatever you do watch what you say or you may find yourself on the end of coments like How would you know? or "its my cancer not yours".At a time when you are trying to be all things to everyone these sort of barbs hurt like hell so try not to put yourself in the firing line too much.

good luck
liz

Having been there as a patient, the anger phase passed for me shortly after treatment started. The radiation/chemo phase was somehow different than surgery, likely beacause of the down time that follows surgery when you feel really powerless, as you are sitting around with an idle mind, and are still waiting for the "real' treatment to begin. Of course, in the background, the anger is driven by fear.

Once the radiation and chemo began, I felt more in control, even thought that was largely illusory. That made the anger go away. It surfaced from time to time as I got frustrated with a side effect, or perceived nagging over the need to eat, but all in all it got much better. Hang in there!

Boy Michelle you have your hands full. The day I broke my husband away from his anger and formed an amazing TEAM was the first visit to the chemo office. He was so angry and nothing I said was agreeable to him. I was taking him to get a hair cut and I told him "I wont say another word". I dropped him off (he expected me to go with him) and I headed to a parking lot to cry. He called my cell when he was done and asked "are you coming back to get me?" I said yes and he apologized and since that day we have had bad moments but it always goes back to the understanding that we are a TEAM. If he does well, I do well. If the doctors are proud that he didnt loose too much weight this week, then they are proud of us both. And so it goes.

In my experience it is so much better when treatment started because you have focus and drive. Crush those pills, fill those feeding tube bags with Ensure, take that temp, feed the kids, make the kids smile, make your husband smile. Call your best friend when you are at your darkest moment.
I am lucky to be working for a company who treats their employees as family but that is still a balancing act for me. I dont want to abuse the freedom and today he went to ENT doctor by himself! My husband is on Short Term Disablity from work and working via his lap top when he can (been a while).

So to make a long story short...I made my one line statement "I wont say another word" and stepped back. I think his friends pointed out that he couldnt take his anger out on his biggest ally.

Good Luck to your TEAM.

Michelle- Hang in there. There have been times when I've just had to say "Yes, dear" to just about any kind of anger my husband dealt out. If you need to cry-do it. Go somewhere quiet and let yourself feel the pain, anger, helplessness and all the other stuff that comes with this journey. Sue

4 years into survival and I was STILL dealing with anger issues! I took an anger management class at my church (actually several in a row), started to see what was going on in my mind and finally deal with it. I was a real handful as a patient during treatment. I'm used to having control - not the other way around. You have to put on thick skin to deal with a cancer patient. I bought my wife a BMW Z4 Roadster to make up for some of my abusiveness;-)

Make sure that you get support for yourself, get enough rest and nutrition. Respite care would be a very beneficial thing as well. Since you are the main person there, you will also be the target - try to spread the love so to speak.

Remember also that most men express their fear as anger.

Michelle,

Just to give balance to the anger discussion....I did not have to deal with it at all. Bill was a very good patient...never lashing out, never showing anger. I can't imagine what it would have been like if he had...I was maxed out emotionally as it was.

The one time he seemed agitated and fussed about being fed, he was running a temperature and I didn't know it...wound up in the hospital.

I have seen Bill very angry...as a young man, he was hard to handle at times but getting older has mellowed him...I am usually the one with the bad temper (blame it on menopause.) Anyway, he just did not react to his dx and treatment with anger...chose to approach it like he has all of his engineering challenges...something he had to conquer.

A thankful caregiver,
Deb

Thanks everyone. The caring responses were great and having them from people of different situations and different perspectives really helps. I have tried to step back the past few days and just be quietly supportive and be the "faciliator" - trying to make things smooth and comfortable for him. Friday was our first 7 hour treatment day and it went pretty good. He is having a good weekend and today I went out to run errands and he called me laughing and said I used my toothpaste, I used my mouthwash, I took my meds, I ate and I napped - anything else? So I'm glad he could be light-hearted about it. He's not really an angry person and rarely loses his temper. I don't think he's quite as mellow as Deb's husband sounds like, but I hope it won't get too bad. But I can imagine it can get irritating/exasperating once I have to start the real you gotta eat/drink nagging. But hey - we love them!! So here we go.
Thanks again everyone - I feel so blessed to be part of this group.

Stay strong, dont know if the anger ever completely goes away but with a lot of encouragement can help him ease the pain away ..

Well we've had a pretty good ride as far as the anger goes. Of course it's not all happiness and light every second, but in general it's been real good and honestly I think we have become closer than ever. We've only been married for just under 7 years so I know we're still considered newlyweds to some of you

Anyway - the anger is back. Intellectually I know it's because of how bad he feels. His counts weren't great this past Friday, his throat pain has increased dramatically, his calories are down, his fluid intake is down and the burns on his neck are starting to hurt pretty bad.

He's snapping at everything. He has read NOTHING about his cancer, NOTHING on this forum, not asked a single question about this, not taken a single note, etc. (he said I could worry about that and he would worry about our business). So now that we are more dramatically moving downhill I am becoming a little more aggressive in the at home care and I am also having to be more diligent in pushing the calories and fluids. This pisses him off - he keeps questioning me and trying to justify himself and trying to deny that he is not having the intake he previously had. I am watching his fluid intake for example and he said I had a huge glass of tea - well he actually drank about 1/3 of it. Or he'll say I had a big bowl of soup - that had to be about 1500 calories. I calculated it and it was 500. I tried to tell him that it is no failure on his part - that it is normal to not be able to get adequate nutrition during this treatment. And that he had to decide if he was willing to supplement with the high-calorie liquid supplement drinks or if he wanted to talk to the doc about a PEG. Throughout this conversation he has pretty much nothing to say. He just thinks he has to defend himself and he does that by exaggerating what he's eating and drinking. I showed him some articles about what lack of calories could do for healing and what dehydration could do re: kidney side effects from Cisplatin. That didn't seem to phase him.

He's also mad about his neck burns and won't listen to any of my suggestions. Today he wouldn't use the Silvadene cream at all. I talked to him about the potential for infection there especially with his WBC at 2.5 - didn't seem to phase him either.

This total conversation took maybe 20 minutes and actually he talked about 15% of the time - mostly nods and grunts and no reaction. Then he's walking out of the room and I said hey, will you let the dog in and he turns around (i don't think he heard me)and said can we not stop talking - I have told you my throat hurts and yet you insist on talking to me. I said did you take your breakthrough pain med - yes - 1 or 2? 1... did you take a swig of the mouthwash? no... Ok if it hurts that bad - take you damn medicine. He said I don't need this now and he just walked out of the room.

I cannot pretend to imagine what he must feel. And I know when you don't feel bad or when you are on morphine or when you hurt or when your counts are down then you have every right to feel this way. And I can get over my hurt and anger in the long run. I'll cry, write it out here, whine to a girlfriend tomorrow, etc. But how do I get him to do what he needs to do. I told him all this is because I love him and I'm not going to sit here mildly and watch him get worse in areas that we could be proactively managing. And I'm not going to sit here and let him do some permanent damage to himself.

So all this long "vent" was to close with how do I get him to do what he is supposed to do? As of right now all I know to do is to be honest tomorrow at the doctor's office. If he gets madder - then he just gets madder I guess. I know he won't divorce me and he can't stay mad forever... What do yall think?

Needless to say this is such a tough ride for me