When you receive a cancer diagnosis, like with many illness, it affects not only the individual but those nearest to them too. For me, partners; be them boyfriends, girlfriends, civil partner, wife, husband, common law, or those that are living with you through it day in and day out are the unsung sufferers when it comes to cancer. The impact frequently is significant for them too but they often feel like they have to hold it together for the sake of the person going through it. Today, marks valentines day and in honour of valentines day (and because I haven’t brought him a present) I have written a letter to my finance.
To every significant other half of a cancer patient out there who has supported their loved one through the trauma, Thank you. We couldn’t do it without you helping us face the good, the bad and the ugly.
Dear Love,
The last few years and especially the last year have been tough on you as well as me. We should have been in a post baby bubble of family enjoyment after the birth of our son. We were developing grand plans to get married and celebrate our love with those dearest to us and to build our family further.
Instead you watched me suffer over, and over again with no power to make it better.
You were there when no one else was and you saw all the highs and lows as they manifested. You bore the brunt of my emotional outbursts from the anger to the tears to the sheer silence and all this you endured and just accepted. You endured endless sleepless nights alongside me because of the disease and then the treatment. You became my nurse, administrating my injections when I could no longer bare to do it myself, afraid that you might cause me further pain.
Frequently, I saw the pain that my illness caused you, the desire in your eyes to take it all away and the sheer frustration that you couldn’t.
The attention has generally been on me over the last year, and how I am doing but you too have been through hell and back. It was a different type of hell but still hell none the less. But I wouldn’t have been able to endure it all had I not had you by my side. You held me when I needed you too, a look between us at times would be more powerful to me than any words we could ever say, and you supported me and advocated for me when I just didn’t have the ability to.
Thank you, my love for sticking by me.
For tolerating and accepting things that you shouldn’t have had to. For holding together our family and day to day life for our little man when I couldn’t. For still managing to run and build your business despite all this going on. And for being by my side every step of the way. You helped to ensure that cancer dominated but didn’t take fully take over our lives. That we still found time to laugh, have fun and enjoy life.
You are my hero, my soulmate, my everything.
Thank you my love.
K xx
