Reply #6: Here is what my wife did.... [View All]

[lldu]

Skidmore, do not give up.

My wife had cervical cancer surgery. She had to have a colostomy AND an ileostomy (for urine). She couldn't work, but she could go to the hospital and help other people understand what she was going thru. Whenever someone was going to get either appliance, the hospital would call her and have her contact the people to try to allay any fears they had. She was good at this, had a great attitude and helped many other people understand that it was not the end of the world.

She had to have more cancer surgery about 10 years ago and while in recovery, a blood clot formed in her left leg and no one caught it for 4-5 days. She ended up losing her left leg.

She didn't even let this stop her. She now had a new mission. Not only help people who were worried about getting appliances (colostomy or ileostomy), she helped people who, usually thru diabetes, had lost or were going to lose their leg.

I never ever saw her cry about this. She never showed me anything but pure heart in the last 9 years of her life. If someone was hurting, she wanted to help them.

She showed many people that their life wasn't over just because some part of them had been removed. She proved it by being the kind of person she was.

But, April 17th of 2006 she was rushed to the hospital for some problems from radiation 13 years prior. She was bleeding to death internally. Even in the hospital she would talk to people she met. She even consoled her surgeon on the loss of his wife 2 months earlier.

April 20, 2006: she goes into surgery. They find an artery in her leg that is bleeding profusely. She goes thru 90 units of blood and she uses up all the platelets in the city of Little Rock - they had to fly in more platelets. She also goes thru an enormous amount of plasma. She never wakes up.

She died 2 days later.

But, she lived her life fully and the way she wanted to live it. She volunteered to help people and she enjoyed it. She never met anyone who was a stranger for long.

If you can, volunteer. Get out of the house and see if anyone needs help.

Teresa never found a job after her surgery over 9 years ago, but she sure made a lot of friends by volunteering to help folks overcome their fear of "what's going to happen to me"

Sorry for the long message. Just keep up hope and get out and do something, anything to keep your spirits up. 4 walls become depressing pretty quickly.

I am not trying to tell you how to run your life, that is for you to decide.

I hope everything works out.

lldu