The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

MMF007

Fuddle! You did brilliantly!! Don't go over it all in your mind,, just know you had a big impact for the better on MrPS. Have a fab time in the 'van.

lamewolf, I can see that the odious man had an appalling impact but you are not odious, are you? I bet that if you met, say, a new neighbour, who told you her mother was a mass murderer you would not condemn the neighbour, would you? Why not? Because you know tbat none of us is responsible for, or bequeathed with the sins of our parents. Am I right? So, if you do right by others, and provide the lovely support you give freely, who better a person could we all want? Well, except for Monna when she is cooking puddings for us all!!

Nargleblast

So many posts recently about health issues, tests, procedures.....one thing stands out. No matter what the problem, it is always the waiting that is the worst. As well I know.

Recently my OH was diagnosed with breast cancer. The doctor was confident that it was treatable, and the five year survival rate was quoted as 85%, which we both thought was pretty good odds.

Monday he had his mastectomy and lymph node clearance (they were just going to remove a couple but couldn't see the nodes clearly enough to identify the ones to take out, so they just took the lot out to be safe). I waited ages to hear he was out of recovery and on the ward. My son and I visited him that evening, he was spaced out on Tramadol but clearly well apart from that. They let him out Wednesday still with a wound drain in situ, which I removed today (as an intensive care nurse I have taken many drains out of patients, so they were happy to trust me with it).

The past couple of days he has been catching up on badly needed sleep, and I have been on the receiving end of his short temper (due to sleep deprivation, anti climax, pain issues etc etc) but have pulled my Big Girl's Knickers up and got on with it. He had a moment in the bathroom yesterday when he came over all weak and dizzy - I had to wipe his backside for him. I thought nothing of it, it needed doing and he was incapacitated, but he was so embarrassed.

Today I took that drain out and he had his first shower since Monday morning. He came downstairs today, he is starting to eat and drink more and is in better spirits. I've (nearly) got my OH back!!!

We heard today his appointment in clinic is two weeks today. We will then find out the biopsy results and whether he will need further treatment I.e. chemo. Whatever the outcome we will deal with it. It is just the seemingly-endless waiting, waiting.

I tell you, we will all need a holiday after this.....

Softstuff

LameWolf, you have no control over where your genes came from, though it can sometimes feel like some peoples genes come from the nice gene pool, some genes from the swampy end. Though nowhere near the issues with your potential father, I spent years worried what I'd inherited genetically from mine, concerned that I'd be any bit like him. Who we are though is a heck of a lot more than the sum of our genes, thankfully. I cope by focusing on the parts of me that are absolutely nothing like him, and the more that time goes by, the higher the difference between me and him.

Well done Fuddle. It sounds like you gave him an education he was long overdue for. And it also sounds like he was in the end grateful for it. It needed doing and you should be proud that you were the one to do it.

Softstuff

Cross posted with you Nargleblast, sending much love for your OH, my fingers are very much crossed for his biopsy results. And yes, you certainly will deserve a holiday after this.

ivyleaf

Oh Nargleblast, your poor OH and poor you! Wishing him the speediest of recoveries and a good outcome from the biopsy.

On one of the occasions I was at the breast clinic, there was just one elderly man in the waiting room with all these women. I thought at first he was there waiting for his wife, but then he was called in, so obviously a patient. I felt so sorry for him being the only man there. It's easy to forget that men get breast cancer too. xx

MMF007

Oh Nargleblast, you have both been through so much. Best wishes to you both. Book that holiday for a few months time

nursemaggie

Nargleblast so sorry to hear your OH is ill. I hope everything goes well and he will be cured.

maryb

Oh poor Nargleblast I agree waiting is awful. We were spared that and although the speed of events left us in shock, looking back I'm so thankful it has been addressed so quickly. I'll be thinking of you both. And yes, I know that you will face it with courage whatever it brings

DH looked so much better today although, of course, he is feeling it more now he is awake even though they are giving him morphine. Funnily enough, it's not the big incision in his chest that is most painful, rather it's the incisions in his arm and leg where they took the veins from to form the graft.

Tomorrow will be better than today and so on. A long recovery - about three months, and he can't drive for six weeks.

My DD is coming over tomorrow to help me renovate the swing seat cushions so that when he gets back he can sit out in the garden if the weather is nice. I told him this when I went today and it brought a smile of pleasure to his face.

Fuddle I am proud of you! I have always been far too unassertive in my life. However there's no denying that SOME men just have an urge to control women, any and all of them and do it by trying to put them down.

My younger DD is pretty savvy about these things and doesn't take any c rap. But DD1 is more like me. We were talking about this recently and she told us , for the first time, that during Freshers' week a boy turned to another one and said quite deliberately 'god, she's ugly' Poor DD fled to her room and it spolit the start of uni for her. It took DD2 to point out to her that one of the ways inadequate boys try to assert control over women is by making them feel bad about their looks.

If you have made Mr PS aware of what he is doing and the effect it has then you have done a VERY GOOD THING!

Floss

Nargle a very good reminder for us all to encourage our OHs to do their health checks, whatever their gender. Best wishes to you and your DH.

Floss

maryb so pleased to hear your DH is on the right side of his surgery, hope the weather holds for his recuperation in the swing seat:)