Hi my name is Liz.I am 53 and my husband was 44 when he died 10 weeks ago.
Robin was diagnosed with mouth cancer in December 2006.His prognosis was excellent and he had part of his tongue removed and a secondary tumour and 62 lymph nodes removed from his neck.This was followed by 35 aggressive radiotherapy sessions.He had a feeding tube inserted into his stomach in March and was unable to eat from March until the day he died in a hospice having lost 6 stone in weight and having over a third of his face eaten away by a necrotic tumour recurrence two months after his treatment finished.

From start to finish he lived just seven months.Seven months of excruciating pain and unbearable physical disfigurement.From a strong rough hard living fit young man,to a helpless empty shell who just wanted to die as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I shared every minute of those seven months with him,and now he is gone and i am alone.

Thanks for coming to share your pain with us. Sorry if my message title sounds glib. Of course you are alone, as we all our in our grief, but you will find that everyone here is willing you to be as strong as poossible, and that is terribly difficult. We are all at different stages, and some of us are better than others, but all of us have faced that dreadful time of utter shock and devastation. all I can say is what I repeat constantly on here..it will get better. Sounds impossiboe. I never thought I would recover from Pat's death, and her long and painful terminal months, when she changed from being the warm generous plump happy woman that she had ben into an almost unrecognisable creature who could not wait to get out of this life. Now I am left, and so are you, to cope with the "left over life". You will get over it, never completely of course, but please keep on keeping on, and keeping in touch. share your screams of rage and grief with us and we'll try to do our best for you. Love,
Derry

Hi Liz My husband died on the 15th September after suffering for about six weeks from cancer on his kidney and lymphs nodes like your husband he was fit and healthy to start with and ended up not being able to walk talk or eat. Though thankfully he didn't suffer as long as some. I ask myself would I have him back in all that pain and discomfort and when I'm honest with myself the answer is no. Don't get me wrong I miss him every second of every day and it hurts like hell. I also feel so alone even when my family visit or I'm with my friends, he was the only one who I could tell my most inner thoughts to He was my best friend and a wonderful lover. I am told that it will get better and the pain will ease and I have to trust in that. At the moment I just drift from day to day, I let tomorrow take care of itself. It does help being able to write down some of my feelings and knowing that there are people out there who understand from their own experiences and this gives me some comfort.

please stay in touch and tell us how you are getting on.
I'm sending you lot's of hugs Love Jan