Well, I have talked with 2 of my sons. I have to say that neither one of them is much of a talker, and I have always thought they were much closer to their dad than me. But I have to admit that they took the news, at least from what I could tell, pretty well. I explained the facts around what we were dealing with, and the likelihood that it would shorten his life. I explained that we have no way of knowing if it would be sooner or later. But that we were all going to make the most of every minute. They didn’t really ask me any questions, but sort of nodded and made comments that led me to believe that they had been "seeing it coming" for a while now.
My third son who is incarcerated, had to receive the news through a text. That fact totally broke my heart. And he didn’t call for a couple of days. When I asked him if he got the text, he said that he had. I asked apologized again and again for having to let him know about the situation in that way. He was pretty amazing to me. He told me not to worry. He told me that he has been "feeling" my husband‘s decline like "in his bones" for a while now. I told him that we have no knowledge that there is any kind of eminent danger that he is in, but it also could be with any of his next UTIs.
I have to say that I was proud of them. Of course I don’t for a minute think that they expressed everything they were feeling, or asked me everything they were wondering about. But they were very receptive to the news. They handled it like men. I was especially surprised and amazed that my son who is incarcerated handled it as well as he did.
Seems I’m the only pu$$y (excuse me) in the bunch…Literally and figuratively.
My husband and I had talked about the situation at length and so I thought we were on the same page. After our visit with the primary care physician, he agrees that a good plan would be to do what we could to get through the less severe UTIs, but take anabiotics when the other measures didn’t work. The PCP seem to be more helpful than the urologist. Of course he is our friend as well. But he and my husband spoke about how this was the first really bad UTI he had in practically decades. He said that the plan seems to be a good one seeing how although my husband has frequent UTIs, they are not normally or hardly ever as bad as this last one.
Anyway, my husband and I agreed with the steps that we were going to take to be as preventative and proactive as we can. Then yesterday he failed to follow through with a couple of those steps, and I had a one-way conversation with him. I basically told him that I was here to help him in whatever way he wanted me to. I would take every measure that I was able to in order to be as safe as we can be to fight this mess. I told him that if he chose to do nothing, I would be there here to support him through that as well. But then I sort of tore him a new one about the fact that he had told me that he wanted to follow through with our "plan" and yet was not doing it. He started paying attention a little more about that time.
Finally, I ask him if he did not understand that this was serious stuff, that it could cost him his life. He said yes he did understand, and so I ask him is he trying to die? He actually started crying at that point. He said no I do not I want to die. So I told him that if he was going to tell me that he wanted to try, he damn well better show me too.
He woke up this morning with a different mindframe. Even woke me up once reminding me that it was time to cath, when my alarm didn’t go off.
Today has been a better day.
We are having to have discussions about whether or not to purchase (between $600 and $900 a month after insurance) enough catheters to use them only once, Even though our urologist says it is not necessary. Of course, if we decide to put that money into the catheters, it will mean letting go of life insurance policies which will be a big blow for either one of us when the other goes, and leave our children nothing. Something else to think about.
Thanks for all your kind words
