My husband was a good man . . . until he wasn't. This statement is true. We were married ALMOST 34 years. For most of that time, he was a really good man. Not a perfect man by any means, but he was definitely a good man. He always had my back and supported me in everything I did or wanted to do. He was my #1 cheerleader. He loved taking me places I had never been. He was up for any adventure, including dancing lessons. Just for the record, he was miserable every minute of those lessons. But he did it. After the last lesson, we agreed that we weren't really "dance people".
His career was in a scientific field. He was widely respected in his field. So many people would comment that he was the smartest person they had ever met. This fact made what eventually happened even sadder than it already was.
What happened was, about 5 years ago, he started showing signs of something that looked like early dementia. He was exhibiting mood swings and having trouble with memory and cognition. Of course, he tried to hide all of this from me, but I probably realized it way before he did. It progressed to where he struggled to dress himself. Then it manifested itself in physical issues.
The left part of his body wasn't working properly. He continued to be in denial that anything was wrong until the day he fell off his e-bike 3 times on one ride. On the third fall, he was unable to get up until a passing motorist stopped to offer assistance. At that point, I stopped listening to his excuses and protests. I contacted our doctor and she ordered an MRI. On the drive home from the MRI, his cell phone rang, but he struggled to answer it and lost the call. Once we got home, another call came through, and he was told he had a very large tumor on his brain, and he was directed to immediately go to the ER with the expectation of surgery.
It was a quiet drive that took about 20 minutes, We were mostly lost in our own thoughts, but he made sure to instruct me on how to open the valve to the secondary water. I told him he was just going to have to keep taking care of those things.
When we reached the ER, they were expecting us. They did a thorough examination and had a neurosurgeon look at the MRI. Long story short, he had a large meningioma on his brain and it had pushed the brain over the midpoint (which is what caused the left side of his body to not function properly). However, they were quick to proclaim that it was not malignant. That was a relief. The next week, he had a craniotomy to remove the meningioma. We thought we were home free!
After the surgery, he immediately started to regain many of the abilities he had lost. He was left with a few "defects" (that is what the doctors called it). His short-term memory was impacted, and he had a noticeable lack of emotional control. After about 3 years, his ability to control his emotions had improved quite a bit. All this time, he had been getting regular MRIs because there was a little piece of the tumor that they couldn't remove due to the proximity of an artery. Despite radiation, every MRI showed continued growth. We were steadily reassured that this very likely was because a slow-growing tumor was also a slow-dying tumor. Finally, the radiology doctor consulted the neurosurgeon, and they decided my husband needed to see the neurosurgeon again.
At that office call, the doctor explained that he could operate again, but the tumor didn't HAVE to be removed. The assumption was that it wouldn't get big enough to cause a problem within my husband's expected lifetime. But he said he wanted it out of his head and elected to have it removed. That turned out to be a bad decision.
The surgery went well, and this time the whole tumor was removed. My husband rebounded amazingly. At 79 years old, he was in great physical shape, and he tolerated the surgery very well. We were told that the defects from the prior surgery shouldn't be impacted by the second surgery, but it could. By the next month, I was seeing issues that indicated to me that the emotional control issue was definitely impacted. Things were getting pretty rough. By the following month, it was a nightmare. He was no longer the man I knew. Even though I was in a dangerous position, I hung in there, if for no other reason than I made the "sickness and health" promise. The doctors were unsuccessfully trying to figure it out by treating the behavior. One Sunday evening in May, he lost the strength in his legs. He refused to see a doctor. The following day, I said he was going to Instacare. They checked him for a stroke and, not having an indication he had one, sent him to the ER for further evaluation. He seemed to decline during the 6 hours we were in the ER. They decided to admit him. When I kissed him goodbye, I told him, "I'm sorry, babe, I never saw this coming".
That night, he became unresponsive, and Rescue was called. (I never was notified of this; I read it in his record after he died.) Monday, they continued to monitor him, but I suspect they pretty much had figured it out. The next day was Tuesday, and they told me he had hydrocephalus. It was set in motion by the surgery 2 months prior. I had to make a decision as to what should happen. Initially, I thought they should go in (for a 3rd time) to drain the fluid. That wouldn't necessarily be a permanent fix for the problem, and likely some brain damage had already occurred. The behavior issues we were dealing with were caused by the delusions he had been having for at least a month. A quiet, loving man had turned into someone who was delusional, angry, and a physical risk to me (I won't go into detail but it was very bad). At this point, the doctor said my husband was not going to have a quality of life even with surgery.
The decision was made that he would be discharged into Hospice. The following day, my 69th birthday, he was moved to an assisted living center. Assisted living was a misnomer. He was totally unable to care for himself, and I was not able to care for him at home.
I tried to get an idea from the doctors as to how long he had. They wouldn't give me any kind of an answer, but when I met with the Hospice nurse, she said they told her he didn't have long. It turned out that he had 9 days. And during those last 9 days, he was tortured by more and worse delusions. On the eighth day, when I went to see him (my sister was with me), he was unconscious and was struggling to breathe. At 4:35am on the 9th day, we were with him when he drew his last breath. His suffering was over.
My husband. I will refer to him as MH.
#Meningioma
#Hydrocephalous
#Delusions
No comments:
Post a Comment
I would love to know if anyone is listening.