He retired in the Spring of 2019 (I think that's correct) he was feeling unwell then but put it down to a general weariness. That Autumn he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and started radiotherapy in the Feb of 2020. Then in early Summer he had a heart attack, for which he had a stent inserted and was started on everlasting heart meds. We thought all of this was awful and worried about what the effect of the radiotherapy was going to be. You have to wait six months to give the prostate time to calm down after the radiotherapy before having a blood test to find out how much the cancer has reduced in size.
So all of this was a big shock to both of us. We worried about it, while pretending to each other that everything was fine, that we were coping with it and were confident everything would turn out fine.
Then the bottom fell out of our world. In the Winter of 2020 tch was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Life kind of went to shit really. He had a 35mm tumour in his stomach and would be having his stomach removed. I didn't even know such a thing was even possible! By then we were well into the Covid pandemic and were isolating because his health was so poor and his immune system compromised.
In the July of 2021 tch had his entire stomach removed, was in hospital 21 days and came home with a pump that was feeding him via a tube into his small bowl. Being 'on the feed ' was awful for him. It made him feel so ill, he couldn't sleep, and just generally felt awful. The weight was just dropping off him. If any family came to see him I know he was wearing baggy clothes so the weight loss wouldn't show so much but when he was dressing first thing in the morning he just looked skin and bone. The bones are so angular and it makes me so sad to see him like this.
Jump forward into the present. Now he can eat more foods, in smaller amounts. He must have five meals spread through the day, so he eats roughly every two hours. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, small meals because there is no stomach and the bowel must digest his food. He has to take meds for this to happen otherwise the food wouldn't be digested. He still weighs little more than a sparrow on a diet (slight exaggeration) but was starting to gain a little weight until some recent bouts of violent vomiting stopped that. So far he's had this three times, each time it lasts about two days. I have never seen anyone vomit so much before! No sooner would he get back in bed than he was rushing to the bathroom again. He pulled muscles in his stomach. Both of us still refer to it as his stomach, though there isn't one 😳 Hopefully this has stopped now, tch hasn't had the vomiting for a couple of weeks, so we hope that's over.
So. We are coming to terms with the new feeding pattern. Tch is not leaving the house very often yet so we don't know how that will work when we go out somewhere. It's quite complicated having to eat every two hours, and have the drugs with you for digestion. So far I think he has been out to see family once and he came with me to Tesco twice. He gets amazingly tired. Just doing something, anything, will utterly wipe him out. He never ever was someone who went back to bed in th daytime if he felt poorly, but these days he has to go back to bed about 4 or sometimes 5 times a week.
It's 4am now and I'm exhausted. I'll come back and tell you some more soon.
Take good care of yourselves xxx
