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"AT LEAST I AM THERE…
TRYING TO HELP


A woman wrote:

My husband doesn't like to talk about it or do research, and he won't even talk to the doctor, if there is a question, I call her and then tell him what she said, but the hardest thing I had to do was go to the drug store and pick-up his Viagra. Well I guess that was for me to so no complaints there, and I am retired and he works, so it keeps me busy. At one time I told him I was going back to work and he said I already had a full time job, him.

Are most of the men like this?

Lucy replied:

In my experience with on-line and in person support groups I find it is rare that BOTH spouses get involved in the research. It is not all that commonplace when it happens and when it does, it is usually an unequal involvement.

So, usually one out of the couple wind up doing it alone, or worse, no one does it at all and both just "listen" to the first or second doc they happen to meet along the way!

Even worse I have seen many brave men fighting the battle with no one at their side.

As the woman who does all the research, appointment-making etc. in this family I feel at least I am there with him trying to help and not standing helplessly on the sidelines. I hazard a guess that most of us who do this need to feel they have some imput into our own fate and the fate of our families.

Strangely though I sometimes feel I am going it alone and it is SO frustrating when I am gathering information, thinking ahead and he is the proverbial turtle who goes along at his own pace and confronts each decision in due course. Remember Russia's old 5 and 10 year Plans? That's me. :-)
On the other hand, I think it can be so overwhelmingly frightening for a man to picture the myriad of possibilities and consequences of treatment, and understand the emotional need to attack each decision as it comes. The dialectic is the emotional condition, I guess.

My personal opinion is that women are used to thinking in terms of deterioration of body and pain and discomfort- i.e. menstruation, menopause and childbirth. We are used to this. Men are not. We plan which thing to do - take hormones or not, which sanitary devices are best, and take muscle relaxants for bad menstrual pain. How many men do we know who fight taking aspirins?

Sometimes I wonder how this old world got along without women in business and politics. It seems to me that we are Major Planners. :-)

Lucy

 
 

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