Tag Archives: grief

Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

The Poison is the Medicine

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It’s probably horrible to refer to my kid as “poison,” but there we are.

I went to the second weekly meeting of our bereavement support group today, and one of the themes that arose is the need for those of us in mourning to be gentle with ourselves. Our brains might not be working properly, we might not feel how we think we should feel, and possibly our single goal for each day is to make it through the day. We are supposed to be patient with ourselves. Mourning is a multi-stage journey, and how we are today is not how we’ll be weeks, months or years from now.

My immediate response to this was anger and resentment. I often don’t feel like I have the luxury of being gentle or patient with myself, because I have a four-year-old son who is in the middle of major life transitions. Isaac lost his dad four months ago, moved with me across the province, started a new preschool and is surrounded by a completely different set of family and friends.

Most of his toys and books are buried in our storage locker, which he told me tonight makes him “frustrated” and want to hit.

The Poison

No matter how much slack I want to give myself during this grieving process, I never feel like I can let it all loose because I have a son to take care of and comfort. I can’t get drunk, spend the day in bed or subsist on crusty bread, blue cheese and salami.

Sometimes I crave a week of solitude, just so I can sit still with the loss of Brock and do whatever I need to, to get all this sadness out.

And, in fact, I could run away for a week. But Isaac would miss me. And my job, at least for the immediate future, is to give him some stability and structure.

The Medicine

THEN it occurred to me, as I ate my way through the tin of chocolate cookies at hospice, that while Isaac makes this whole grieving thing more difficult, he is also what is pulling me through it.

Brock and I planned this move to Invermere for Isaac. Regardless of all my own reasons for coming here, if I didn’t have Isaac to consider I would probably set off on the Appalachian Trail this year. I wouldn’t be building a house here, or settling in for the next 15 years. It’s comforting to have this plan. I don’t ever feel lost or overwhelmed with decisions, because they’ve already been made. And I like our plan.

If I didn’t have Isaac, I wouldn’t have to get out of bed every morning (he likes to turn on all the lights to ensure I’m awake). I wouldn’t have the structure in my days (thanks to his preschool and various activities) that makes it possible for me to write and finish my first ever mystery novel.

Yes, having Isaac in my life forces me to function at a level above where I would like right now, but he also helps me grieve Brock. He talks about his dad every few days, telling me stories or clarifying memories while we drive around or read in bed. These mentions are random and therefore I don’t have my defences up: he forces me to remember, and it’s painful. Making Isaac’s Christmas gift, a photo album of “dad and Isaac” pictures, was a therapy session unto itself.

It’s All About the Dose

I Googled “poison is the medicine” for kicks and it comes from toxicology, specifically its father Paracelsus, a Swiss physician born in 1493-ish, who wrote:

“Sola dosis facit venenum”

Which Wikipedia translates as:

“Only the dose makes the poison.”

I interpret this to mean that my regular outsourcing of Isaac to preschool, gymnastics, swimming & skating & skiing lessons, Aunt Evy and his grandparents is a good thing.

And I suppose the fact that I use that alone time NOT to eat salami and drink martinis and sob in bed, but rather to write and attend a support group and read mysteries, is a good sign.

Maybe the dose is exactly right.

The hardest Christmas present I’ve ever made: a photo album for Isaac of all his photos with his dad.
Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

Bereavement Support Group – Day 1

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I’ve signed up for a 12-part bereavement support group through my local hospice society. I was all cool with it until they said to bring a photo of Brock to the first meeting: for some reason, that was the saddest part.

I looked through the photo album I gave Isaac this Christmas and chose this picture:

It’s from September 2014. Isaac had just turned one year old, and Brock hadn’t yet been diagnosed with cancer. We’d gone to Vancouver for a weekend to check out the farmers’ markets, expecting to expand our farm operation in the coming years. On the way back to the ferry we’d side-tripped to Whistler for the afternoon. Brock starting feeling sick a month later, and by December we knew he had kidney cancer. I love this picture because it captures our “Before” life.

As part of our first support group meeting, we each introduced ourselves and our lost loved ones, handing around the photographs we’d brought.

The big difference I’ve noticed so far between my “spouses of those with life-shortening cancer” support group and this new bereavement support group (which isn’t limited to only spouses) is that this group is much more structured. There are 12 weekly meetings, with assigned (“suggested”) readings and journal pages to write for each meeting. The reading book is Alan D. Wolfelt’s Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart. The journal is also by Dr. Wolfelt. (I’m going to plug the Columbia Valley Basin Trust here, because they donate the money to hospice that pays for these journals. Thank you, CVBT!)

I don’t have much to say about the book yet because I’ve only skimmed the first bit. There’s a lot of “soft” language, like “journey,” “companion,” “presence” and “honouring.” Brock would probably roll his eyes. I’m trying to keep an open mind.

I like the structure of these meetings. I was wondering why it felt appropriate, even though it was different from my cancer-spouses’ support group, where we just took turns talking. I think it’s because there has to be an END to support groups. My spouses’ support group membership ended when Brock died. Some people are members for years, but eventually their spouse does (or will) die. There’s a natural end. For those of us who grieve a loved one’s death, that grief will never end. So there’s an artificial end imposed: the end of the book we’re reading together.

While I can’t yet comment on the support group experience itself, since I’m only one meeting in, I would like to say how much I LOVE hospice societies.

Hospice Societies Are Great

I have experienced two hospice societies now, one in the Cowichan (Duncan) and one here in the Columbia Valley (Invermere). In Duncan, I would walk into this calm, quiet space and be offered tea. The volunteer/receptionist would bring me a pot of whatever I wanted, on a little tray with a mug. I could browse the books, read and cry. Whatever I needed.

In Invermere, there is a basket of cozy slippers by the boot rack. I self-served from a fabulous selection of tea, and chose from many large mugs. On the table in the meeting room were two gigantic tins of chocolate-covered cookies (and boxes of Kleenex).

Whenever I’ve visited a hospice office, there’s this feeling of being taken care of. For people who are taking care of others (sick or dying loved ones, children), being offered a hot cup of tea, cookies and hand-knitted slippers is decadent. Often, the kindness and relief is enough to make me cry.

Confidentiality

Obviously there’s a code of confidentiality with support groups. I have no intention of writing anything about the other members of my group(s). But I look foward to sharing my own experiences with you. I’m very aware that death is something unfamiliar and scary to many of us, and I like having you along with me for the journey. It’s comforting if we do it together.