A Sad Lonely Cancerous Widow

What happens when you're faced with the dual trials of terminal illness and profound grief? 

This episode is a deeply personal update of my journey through Stage IV Cancer and the emotional echoes of losing my husband, as I grapple with confronting my mortality and the complex layers of grief that come with it.

This is a great example of feeling like you are finally moving forward in life and how moments of intense grief can still linger, casting shadows over your achievements. 

Join me for an honest conversation about how I'm trying to once again find strength, joy, and comfort amidst the isolating and exhausting realities of living with Stage IV cancer and widowhood.

As always, Widow Your Way ❤️

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hey friends, I know it's been a while, but if you've been following me on Instagram or Facebook, I did do a live update not too long ago explaining why I have been MIA or, as I like to put it, held hostage by cancer. So for those of you that are just tuning in for the first time, you can go back to season 1, Episode 1 to hear my whole story of being diagnosed with a rare eye cancer just six weeks after my husband Tom had died. And in Season 4 of the podcast you will find that my cancer has metastasized. And that's where I'm at today, living with a stage four liver cancer. I recently had some complications with my cancer treatments and ended up in the hospital. The results left me physically unable to do anything on my own. Mentally it was like I was living in a fog, and emotionally well, I'm just exhausted. So it's been about two months since all this started and I'm finally feeling more like myself again.

Speaker 1: 1:56

My recovery physically has been faster than expected, after just four weeks out of the hospital. Thanks to a great home at-home physical therapist, Jessica. I'm finally done with the wheelchair. I graduated quickly from using a walker to a cane and I'm pushing myself to do more and more every day. I even drove for the first time in two months and boy did that feel amazing just to be able to leave the house on my own, Because I've always been so independent and this recent battle with cancer has taken that away from me. But, as you know, I'm always looking for the positive in everything, so I do have to say that this experience has also been very humbling being bedridden, not being able to stand on my own or needing assistance just to take a few steps, having to use a bedside potty, having my best friend shower and dress me, my mom waiting on me hand and foot, having to call her every time I needed to drink or eat anything. I needed to drink or eat anything, refusing visitors because I just didn't want people to see me incapacitated.

Speaker 1: 3:37

During this time I was not know. Probably still, I was angry a lot, but mostly sad. I mean, my mind was constantly taking me places that it shouldn't, thinking the worst, going back to my old ways of thinking where I need to make a plan for everything, thinking that that would give me some kind of control. But we can't control cancer and we also can't control grief. I was crying all the time for anything and everything, but mostly I was thinking about death. Death, and although physically I'm doing better, mentally and emotionally is a whole other story. The thing is, I'm grieving and you would think that I would be used to this by now with so many losses but this is a whole different type of grief. But this is a whole different type of grief. I am watching myself die, but I'm also watching everyone else watch me die and I feel helpless and in the midst of all my own emotions. Sometimes I just don't feel that I have the capacity to support others, and this is a very familiar feeling for me.

Speaker 1: 5:17

When Tom died, when I was grieving his loss, I could not see other people's grief for him. I just couldn't. And as a widow, we sometimes feel like we are the only person who truly loved our husbands. We are the only person that is grieving him, Like we are the only person that is grieving him, Like we are the only ones that are even still grieving them years later. But now that I'm more aware, many years later, I know that's not true. I know that there are other people grieving Tom grieving. There are other people grieving our husbands, just in a different way, and with that. I try to acknowledge other people's grief and their love for me, but it's still hard. It's hard because I find myself looking to others for strength when I don't have it, and I look to others for laughter when I just can't find joy, and I look to others for comfort when I feel alone. And I look to others for comfort when I feel alone. I find myself comparing the grief I'm experiencing now for the same grief that I experienced when Tom died. It's similar in a lot of ways, like the emotions themselves and also the fact that cancer also played a role after Tom died.

Speaker 1: 7:27

But it's six weeks of grieving him before I went into survival mode due to my eye cancer diagnosis and everything was happening so fast and that first year after Tom had died is sometimes just a blur. I died, then I got my diagnosis, I had the surgery to remove my eye, then I had to have radiation afterwards because the cancer had already spread. I had to wait to get my prosthetic eye. I was getting scans every three months with the impending threat of metastasis. All I could think about was cancer, and there were also so many other things happening during that time. I mean, life was just lifing lifing the hell out of me without Tom. Sometimes during that time it felt like he didn't exist at all. So I had a lot of guilt mixed up in my grief for Tom, mostly because I felt like I put him on a back burner. But it's something that I had to learn to forgive myself for feeling that way, because I had to take care of myself right, and I knew deep down that Tom would understand that.

Speaker 1: 9:06

And that's what survival mode does to us. Sometimes we have on these blinders and we can't see other things or other people around us. So since this stage four diagnosis I've found myself back in that same survival mode, but in one way it's a tad bit different. With Tom we went into survival mode. I was also on this autopilot right, and with that I didn't think, I just sat back and did what I was told and let other people take care of things. And even with my cancer diagnosis I was on autopilot again. And my friend Dana she basically took over and I let her, because sometimes that's just a comfortable feeling, just letting go and letting someone else just tell you what to do, when to do, how to do it, when to show up, when to speak. And so this time, survival mode is just a tad bit different. I don't want to be on autopilot. I want to be aware of everything Okay, and it makes me think back to you know, when Tom died the amount of responsibility that I put on everyone else while I grieved and the amount of support that I had from the people who did that. I can't thank them enough. So here I am again in survival mode, dealing with this cancer, and all I can think about is Tom. Now, I knew this day was going to come since my initial diagnosis in 2018. But I still don't think that anything can still prepare you for it.

Speaker 1: 11:33

And the day that it hit me was the day before I was admitted to the hospital during this recent complication. It was the worst day I had been sick for weeks. I was in so much pain, I was feverish. I was passing out. I don't even think I took pain meds that day or even got up to use the bathroom. I laid in the bed, just incapacitated. I couldn't even speak and I was scared that I was dying. The next morning, I was able to have Siri call Angie and, of course, my best friend came right over. She was asking me what was wrong. What did I think was wrong? And for the first time I said it out loud I'm dying and the treatments aren't working. I just knew, and at that moment it was like the floodgates of grief just finally busted open for me for the first time, as I admitted to myself that I was dying, and it's a combination of fear and relief that is just unexplainable.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Now one of my coping mechanisms is humor. It always has been, and with the loss of Tom came a rather dark sense of humor, and I don't share that with everyone because some people just don't get it and some people are a little too sensitive. So I keep some of those things to myself. But luckily my son and my best friend, Angie, are right there with me. And that is where my sad, lonely, cancerous widow card comes into play, Even though that was meant to be funny. After Tom died, it is something that I started to believe. I believed that I would be a sad, lonely, cancerous widow forever.

Speaker 1: 13:54

It took me three years after Tom died before I really started moving forward with my life. I feel like I really started to live. For the first time ever, All of my cancer scans were clear. I was finally getting scanned every six months instead of three. I was traveling, which is something that I always wanted to do. I started dating, but we're not going to talk about that. I went back to college, got my associate's degree. I started to expand my circle of friends and met the most inspiring women ever. I did a cross-country trip by myself, I started a podcast and now I'm in the process of writing a book.

Speaker 1: 14:43

And with all of that I'm starting to feel like that same old, sad, lonely, cancerous widow again. And this time it's been really hard to shake, Like everything is impossible. Call it widow brain, cancer brain, grief, brain, I don't know. It's know, it's just hard to think. Sometimes it's difficult now to find words to express how I feel, but mostly I'm scared.

Speaker 1: 15:25

I used to dread telling my story and sometimes I still do. It just seems like it's too much of a tragedy for anyone to bear or to even listen to. But then one day I did see my story in a new light and I found beauty in my widow journey, strength and resilience in how I survived. And that is why I started this podcast to share my story, not as a tale of sadness, but really as a testament to the power of the human spirit and the incredible strength that is within all of us. But I'm searching for that same feeling again. So please bear with me as I navigate through this new realm of grief, Because I'm trying really hard to remember that love is not dead, just my husband.