Annie M,

All good advise above but I also want to chime in about the mental part of this recovery.

First, physically the recovery is painfully slow. Most of us are accustomed to getting better much faster after being sick so when that doesn't happen it can prey on an already fragile mental state even though we constantly read or hear that our recovery will take a long time.

I am 10 months post Tx and am pretty much back to my normal sans some dry mouth but I remember dealing with some pretty tough mental issues just a few months back. I really wanted to retire. I really questioned how much longer I would live and really didn't want to work till the day I found out I was going to die. I even got madder when my wife, my caregiver, the person that saved my life more than once, my vida told me she was not ready to retire and she wanted to work another 10 years because she still had goals to accomplish. TEN YEARS, are you kidding me!! I could have a reoccurance tomorrow and only live another year, I kept saying to myself.

Well as they say, time heals all wounds and now my life has returned almost to pre Tx normal and my mental health has also readjusted itself. I no longer harbor feelings of impending death but I look forward to the future. I have found that the more things I do now that I used to do, the more normal my life feels, including my mental outlook.

Each of us, including you caregivers have to deal with the cancer deamons in our own way and we don't get much help along that path and I'm really not sure if someone trained could have helped me. I really needed to deal with my issues myself.

I will say this though, that I credit this site and all the unbelievable people who post and share their feelings to help me deal with everything so I guess I really did get expert help. It's tragic how you almost never see both the cancer patient and their caregiver post together. Certaintly both need to.