One of the most difficult things with having cancer was worrying about my husband and family. I think they have the hardest job. Yes, I was enduring surgery, and previously, radiation. But I had doctors, nurses, and others taking good care of me, and I really had no choice with what I had to go through as the patient. I was just along for the ride. But being the spouse of someone battling this disease is often times worse than being the patient. It’s so difficult to sit on the sidelines and watch your loved one in pain or going through surgery. There’s nothing worse than that helpless feeling. Who takes care of the care-giver?

No matter how many times I told my husband to take a break or make sure he was in good shape, he’d always say “It’s not about me right now.”
Well, in my mind, it was about him. He marvels that people from our church came to sit with him and pray during my surgery. He doesn’t understand that having our friends with him so he wouldn’t be alone made ME feel better. I wanted him to feel love and supported. It doesn’t do us any good as patients to watch our loved ones run themselves ragged.

While being a cancer patient is often a lonely road, I believe being the spouse or a loved-one of a cancer patient is often lonelier and scarier.

The next time you go see a sick friend, or visit a patient in the hospital, make sure you take the time to do something special for the spouse of that patient. Let them know they really aren’t alone and that people care about them as much as they care about the patient. Take them out for coffee and let them talk. Listen to them. They have just as many fears as the cancer patient does. Maybe more…

Take care of the care-giver. It’s good medicine for all of us.

Keep on truckin’ everyone!