During the months prior to this, Rex had mentioned some problems he had been having with his bowels, about which he had been seeing his Dr., but I am afraid to say I had heard but not thought to encourage Rex to do anything about what I had heard and had not noticed he had lost so much weight.  I did feel guilty that I had not done or noticed enough, but on the other hand I did not realize Rex’s symptoms were to prove so serious, and a bit of me thought he was an adult and able to look after himself and fight his corner if he felt he wasn’t being dealt with as he thought fit.

On his return from the Dr. when he had reported his weight loss, the dreaded ‘C’ word was not mentioned, but enough was said for me to think ‘Bowel Cancer’ and with a search on the web site, I felt my worst fears were confirmed within minutes of Rex’s return home.

From my perspective, the next three weeks were absolutely dreadful.  I was so afraid for both of us.  Unknown to Rex, I shed many many tears – usually late at night – and, of course, the thought was ‘if you have cancer you die’, and I had to get my mind around it all, as Rex was no doubt trying to do.  At the same time as this was happening, my Mother was gravely ill, whose sole Carer I was.  There were times when I honestly don’t know how I survived mentally.  However, three weeks was what I needed to, in my words, ‘get my mind around it all’ and then I felt I could cope.  Then, during all the time you are trying to sort yourself out, you feel you must not let your husband know how worried you are and you have to be very strong for them, or hope you come across as being very strong.  Also I didn’t want our two daughters, who live a distance away, to be too worried, so the Carer becomes a juggler with a lot of balls in the air, protecting a lot of people which means you are at the bottom of the heap trying to pretend you are not too worried and that all would be well, but not at all sure that it would.

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