When Husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago, the specialist was very honest and used words and phrases like the following:
- advanced, aggressive, incurable, terminal, palliative
- too late for chemotherapy, radiotherapy or prostatectomy
- 1 – 3 years left with hormone treatment
Now, by my calculations, Husband has now out-lived those 1-3 years by nearly another 1-3 years, so the incredible heartbreak and stress we experienced when the situation was put to us so honestly that day was, I now think, unnecessary. In other words, knowing the truth of the diagnosis wasn’t particularly helpful.
On the other hand, with the Parkinson’s disease diagnosis (before the prostate cancer one), we were told very little about what to expect. Partly this is because is it a bit of a mysterious disease that affects its ‘victims’ in very individual ways. For example, Husband doesn’t have that shaky thing most people associate with Parkinson’s; instead he has immobility problems in every way. Nevertheless, it would have been great to have been given a bit more honest information about what was coming, or at least what might be coming.
Several posts ago, in discussing Son’s scoliosis operation, I mentioned how terrible it was for Son to be told post-surgery, by one of the specialists (not the surgeon) that he would be incapacitated for a year while his spine healed. That honesty was, I believe, bad timing in the sense that he was still in hospital recovering. During our latest appointment, however, the same thing was said but this time it was more palatable.
The honesty conundrum has also been tricky this Easter weekend because Husband is wondering why Son is staying at Grandma’s so, tonight, as I was tucking Husband in, I admitted to him that Son finds him difficult and that I find it difficult having both of them in the same vicinity! We had a laugh, so the honesty of telling Husband something so hurtful was alleviated somewhat by humour.
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday so Grandma (my mother) is bringing Son home and we are all having lunch together (roast turkey, but I never told Bubble!)
Son rang me last night from Grandma’s and asked if he could speak honestly and I said yes and the conversation was very long and cathartic. Son admitted how difficult he found Husband, but he also admitted how sorry he was for this and that he would try harder to be more patient. I told Husband about this conversation today and we shed a few tears but not too many.
And, on the topic of honesty, why didn’t the people who sold us the peacocks tell us they sleep in the trees? If they had told us, I wouldn’t have worried so much about that fox getting them!
Happy Easter … honestly!
jmgoyder 