My Wife a few days before her death after 21 years of fighting Cancer.

Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by Quebber
image showing My Wife a few days before her death after 21 years of fighting Cancer.

Quebber on June 23rd, 2019 at 17:30 UTC »

My cancer may have come back, the oncologist wants to see me on the 5th, I wanted this out there just incase.

The love of my life is at peace now, no more pain or suffering, for twenty years she fought illness, first incurable cancer (controlled with medication) then Diabetes caused by the medication and then full renal failure.

I fought along side her, I did everything I could but at 42 on the 8th of November 2018 she woke up at home feeling nauseous and with heart burn, we thought it was a stomach bug, on the 13th at 4am we went in ambulance to hospital, within an hour she was moved to the coronary care unit, it seemed she had what is called a silent heart attack that is an event without any of the chest pains or symptoms normal to such a thing.

As with every other problem she fought it and I was by her side, diagnosis was limited because CT and MRI tools use a dye that needs to leave the body and with full renal failure that is a problem.

On Tuesday 20th of November at 6:30am I went into hospital to disconnect Paola from her dialysis, things were looking up it was working well, we smiled and talked really wanting the treatment to get a move on, both of us wanted her back at home, no one ever wants to be in hospital, no matter how amazing the nurses and Doctors are we heal best at home.

After I disconnected her and we pushed the machine out of the way, we chatted as we waited for the nurses to come and give Paola her dry weight, a dry weight is when something you take first thing in the morning before eating or drinking, it is how you keep a record and watch on fluid build up.

The Doctors and Nurses in the coronary care unit were amazing the best I have ever seen, every night I went home knowing Paola was in good hands.

The main Doctor came around and told us the plan of action an Echo cardiogram and a big meeting of all the specialists, then tweaking of Paola's medicine and maybe home by the weekend.

Her weight was taken and then she sat out in her wheelchair, I tried to brain storm new things to distract her, at 9am I left after making sure the Nurses ordered her a protein drink, before leaving I told her that I loved her, and waved through the door to her room, I called Trevor to come pick me up and stood outside the hospital main entrance, Paola messaged me on whatsapp and mentioned Minecraft for the phone so I bought it for her from the google store and told her to download it.

I was so excited to tell Trevor Paola should be home by the weekend, even started making plans.

From looking at her phone I could see the last thing she did was start playing Minecraft and listening to the new song Hold on to Memories by Disturbed, I got home and fed the dogs, went up on my computer and started typing out all the updates to let people know how Paola was, I then looked at rings online, Paola wanted to swap her ring for one with less edges, I found a lovely band with a Dragon, it was 10:07 when I sent a message to her phone asking for her ring size.

She never replied, I got a call a minute later from the nurse looking after Paola, saying she was in a bad way and I needed to get back to the hospital, I felt right then like my world was ending, everything went cold, I put the dogs in and ran over to Trevor's house next door, we were in the car in minutes and he found a parking space while I ran to the ward, I was trying to talk myself out of the pit that had formed in my mind, I was shaking as I pressed the buzzer into the ward, a nurse came to me and told me they were working on Paola, would I like to go in or go wait in the waiting room, I went in with them.

I now understood why the coronary rooms are so big, 12 people were in there, a lot of machines and they were taking turns on Paola's chest, if you have never seen a cardiac arrest and how they respond its not like in the movies or TV series, its so much more violent, they compress the entire chest, they had the echo ultra sound , 2 mins of chest compressions plus she was already ventilated then they would stop check for a pulse, (unlike tv there is no sound from the machines they turn the sound off) do a quick echo scan of her heart and start again.

They managed to bring her back once just before I arrived and she had a second cardiac arrest, her heart was unresponsive, not working at all, they gave adrenaline they really did try everything and they let me tell them when to stop.

They then told me to hold her hand and talk to her as she slipped away which I did.

Paola was in no pain at the end, after that moment of playing Minecraft and listening to her song once she said her chest felt funny by the time they lay her on the bed she was listless and unfocused. But as the Doctors explained her body fought to the end.

She was an amazing woman, I wrote a short novella about her, even though her life was full of pain and suffering she never complained and never gave up and always had time to help others.

I am at a loss.

I published the story on Amazon, if you search for Paola A Warrior's Soul, it will come up, no one has to buy it.

7 days after she died I was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer, spent the weeks after Christmas in hospital having 40% of my bowels removed.

My cancer may have moved to my lungs, I have a nodule they are keeping an eye on.

Oh the positive side I have found a way to cope with my Depression, ADHD and Autism (higher function) plus bereavement, Completely raw and unscripted, I stream and record pretty much everything I do, it makes me feel less alone in life now.

I play games, repair items, cook and generally while doing so talk about Depression, Loss, ADHD and try to have a little fun.

This week I received a phone call and letter the oncologist wants to speak to me about my latest CT scan.

I won't put links to my Twitch or YT they are in my Profile.

Update:

Thank you for all the kind comments, I will address some of the not so nice comments.

Before Paola died I did post thank you letters to a lot of game boards, games Paola loved, thanking the devs for making her smile, that is where the Ninja Kiwi hat came from it arrived 4 weeks before she died and she never took it off.

Paola was beautiful amazing and had a warriors soul fighting right up to the end, before she died I asked her if it was okay to show the world her art and even this picture, she was okay with it.

7 Days after she died I was diagnosed with Bowel cancer and my only fear was the world would forget Paola or not know what an amazing woman she was, so I setup my website, wrote the novella and then put it up on my website for free, it was on that site for 6 months to download by anyone, no cost, no charge, not even having to sign up.

At this point (maybe 50 downloads) I was about to go in for surgery and didn't know if I would survive so I put it on amazon kindle, the only problem was you can't list it for 0 it has to have a price and 4 months later I removed it from my website because you can put it on the kindle unlimited thing but it can't be available elsewhere even for free and I believe when I finish setting that up more people will get to know about Paola and that is why I did it.

I point people towards the book and my channels simply because people ask and it is easier.

As for the posts about karma if you ever lose someone that really matters to you, money let alone virtual karma or anything else means very little to you ever again.

I just wanted more people to hear about Paola and how gaming helped her and me, that is all, her picture does belong here, she was amazing and beautiful, artistic and with a love of life and that is all in that picture.

gbdallin on June 23rd, 2019 at 17:34 UTC »

r/lastimages would be a nice place to put this story

_d__train on June 23rd, 2019 at 18:32 UTC »

Man, fuck cancer.