Significant weight loss, refusal to see a doctor
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Anonymous
Of course! I’m just trying to show that cancer and other bad diagnoses do not need to mean death, so being proactive within reason is important. In my uncles case it was poor medical care. He had blood in his urine and pain, and was just given antibiotics for a year. My dad’s first time with blood in urine led to more investigation and the cancer dx…at which point my uncle demanded more attention but his was already more advanced. Was it bad luck or small town Midwest system versus California research hospital? Dunno but it just seems like it could have been a different outcome. |
Anonymous
| Thanks everyone. Had to make a few trips out of town for family emergency (unrelated to DH) and burst pipe and water damage at home. It’s thrown off follow up plans a bit. He’s still has symptoms of a UTI, so I expect he will make a follow up appointment for next week. He did manage to put on 2 lbs. I won’t call it progress but at least he’s paying attention to his body. |
Anonymous
Great news that he’s starting to deal (but sorry about the other crap). Please continue to follow up. UTIs can be indicators of other diseases as well as hard on the kidney etc. |
Anonymous
| Pp here- meant to add that Crohn’s disease has been linked to chronic uti in men. Could explain pain and weight loss. |
Anonymous
| Get him a therapist |
Anonymous
+1. My first thought was to get an awesome life insurance plan. I'm sorry, OP. I hope it's a tapeworm or something. I know he must be terrified. Maybe give him a xanax or psilocybin or something and drag him to the office. |
Anonymous
| I keep wondering what happened to these folks. I hope he improved. |
Anonymous
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Op here — it is like walking through molasses. And I have an out of state childless relative and a parent who are counting in addition to DH and a struggling teen. Elderly Relative is in hospital, parent also out of state received cancer diagnosis — I’m spent. I’m not in good shape myself and tell NO ONE except DH. It won’t change anything about me not doing enough.
Anyway, regarding DH — he has been prescribed more antibiotics for ongoing UTIs. He is willing to go to a urologist but only if I handle everything. Meanwhile I’m dealing with hospital calls for relative, other relatives that are giving me grief re: my parent with whom I’ve tried many times to assist to improve the situation and avoid what has unfolded there. Why can’t adults frickin’ do what needs to be done???? Elderly relative who is cognitively sound (even by docs) is in hospital bc he stopped taking meds due to issues with side effects (frequent urination). The only reason DH is conceding to see the doc is bc he is VERY uncomfortable. TL;DR No significant news. |
Anonymous
| Possibly see a dentist! |
Anonymous
Explain. I don’t understand. |
Anonymous
I’m sorry OP. They don’t call us the sandwich generation for no reason. I agree that it’s so hard to be involved with adults who are incapable of taking any initiative for their own health for no reason. At some point you have to drop the rope. If someone is cognizant then there’s no reason for another adult to have to do any of the work for them. Let your husband handle himself, you’re not his mom. Let your relative who stopped taking his meds deal with the consequences of that decision. And tell some friends what you’re going through. Don’t just lean on your husband. It’s easy for me to give this advice because I’m not the one walking in your shoes, but I’m also an objective opinion with no horse in this race and someone who has spent way too much time and energy trying to take care of people who don’t have any interest in taking care of themselves. |
Anonymous
Thanks for the update OP. I have been in your shoes in a lot of ways. I agree with the advice about dropping the rope. Therapy helped me a lot. The elderly relative who is cognitively sound dropping meds is not your problem at all. We had that too, but having been through elders who live forever in the worst possible shape declining into misery and no independence, I don't see it as tragic to allow someone of sound mind to live on his/her terms. We had one elder do just that. She was declining and had already lost enough independence she was miserable even with meds/therapy/visits. She refused meds and willed herself to die, but made sure she be nasty enough to everyone beforehand that it was easy enough to be at peace with the fact she was finally resting in peace. With my husband's health issues I was the one pushing and making appointments and doing backflips and I finally had to have a come to J talk about what it was doing to me. I let him know how much I love him and care about him and what a great father he is and person, but he had to take charge of his own health and when he does need my health he needs to be on decent behavior. (The only time I can't stand him is when he is ill because he is petulant and mean and makes many demands). I told him how much it would break my heart to see him decline and how hard it would be to lose him, but I cannot be the person keeping him alive, he has to want to be alive and want to take the steps. That helped some. Another thing that helped was when he was so ill he was willing to go the ER and I had to take him, wait for the nurse to roll him into a temporary room and I had to leave because one of our kids was sick at school. He was alone at the ER and once pain meds kicked in the doctor saw him. She asked about his primary care physician, He had none. She asked about what Drs. he had seen prior. None. She then told him off. She completely shamed him and something clicked and he realized it was time to take charge of his health. |
Anonymous
| Buy as much life insurance as you can. |
Anonymous
My brother has what they now call “Type 1 1/2” diabetes. In his thirties he had unexplained weight loss. It got to the point where he was ordering two entrees when we’d go out to dinner and eating it all and he still weighed the same as in high school. He felt crappy and was tired all the time. He was way too skinny and we were really scared. We begged him to see a doctor as there was obviously something wrong. He refused and would get angry. This went on for a couple years. One day he passed out at work. He worked for a large company that employed a nurse. She took his blood sugar. The reading was in the hundreds; he literally was at the top of the scale that her device could measure. He was immediately sent by ambulance to the hospital and not allowed to return to work until he had a doctor’s note stating that his diabetes was under control. Metformin helped, but even if he ate virtually nothing, his blood sugar was still pretty high. Eventually he had to start using insulin. His blood sugar is now pretty well controlled and he’s at a healthy weight, but it took years to get to this point. |
Anonymous
| OP, I’m so sorry you have so many stressful situations in different places to deal with. That’s a lot. It’s very important for you to draw some boundaries and make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Your children need at least one parent. Mothers often don’t prioritize themselves along with everyone else, but you simply must. |