Hi Katherine,
Thank you for your welcome.
I have read DJ74’s thread and cannot imagine the difficulties of dealing with a partner’s denial in a relatively new relationship let alone combining it with an angry ex-wife.
I’d like to introduce myself. I am a retired “baby boomer” who resides with my husband of forty plus years in the Greater Toronto Area. Having raised three children, I embrace a strong commitment to my immediate and extended families. Living with Felty’s Rheumatoid Arthritis I am cognizant of the medical infrastructure here.
My husband who just turned 65 was a blue-collar worker who seemingly appears to be aware of his illnesses; Stage 4 Bladder cancer, Chronic Kidney Disease (less than 20% functionality), Peripheral Vascular Disease (groin stents and blockages both legs), Sleep Apnea and a 5.2 cm. Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, but chooses not to accept them. He has given his written consent for my inclusion to the doctors and their teams and I accompany him to his various appointments with the General Practitioner, Urologist, Nephrologist, Oncologist and Radiologist. I am in essence his informal caregiver and primary organizer.
With my husband’s disease complexity and the difficulty of managing his multi-morbidity issues, the doctors’ are now in a wait and see pattern; no surgeries and no chemotherapy. As the Oncologist expressed when there is a “fire”, he would put it out.
With my husband’s depression due to the difficult emotional challenges facing a terminal illness and profound denial with me there is a major obstacle to all end-of-life care. This obstructs any ability to plan as a couple for the inevitable, as well as any opportunity for us to say goodbye to each other and to review our 47 years together.
I cannot change or override his denial; however, it places me in a difficult position. As I accompany him to his appointments, I am unable to speak clearly with his doctors; even my mentioning his depression in front of him to his doctors, angers him.
When I prepared the papers and asked the Urologist to refer us to an Oncologist in a clinic setting at a major hospital, I assumed we would be getting a team as has happened with the Nephrologist (vascular surgeon, hematologist, pharmacist, dietician, nurse). Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. We now have the Oncologist, but no team. I had hoped for a team setting including a counselor or grief therapist. Placed in a setting such as this, my husband would have railed against it, but would have eventually accepted it.
With our age and all that it entails, palliative is not a word that is used in this home. My husband believes palliative equals imminent death and with denial he is unwilling to accede that there is much more to the phrase “palliative care” than he believes.
So to answer your question, “Do you or your husband see a counsellor through the cancer agency?” no. To seek an individual counsellor for him would anger him and disturb and disrupt his entrenched denial. I on the other hand, would have to seek counselling privately via the internet without his knowledge. I have done many things associated with his care without his knowledge. As a realist, having done so with my mother before him, I have spoken via email with the funeral home and made arrangements, knowing not if or when, but that this will happen sooner rather than later.
We live a quiet life, with few friends, he sleeping much more than normal and I running the home physically and financially. Every day I plaster a smile on my face and live in his pretend world where everything is just fine.
Cherel