What's A Co-Patient?
The term "caregiver" is usually given to the person closest to the patient, but that term never seemed quite appropriate for my husband Alex. He did, in fact, give me more care than I could have asked for, but at the same time, he was struggling with fears of his own. I had the disease, but he certainly shared the emotional impact while at the same time managed most of the day-to-day responsibilities that I couldn't handle. "Co-patient" seemed a much more fitting description.
The following are random passages from my book about feelings he shared with me when I was writing it:
This takes places shortly after my diagnosis: "He immediately refused to indulge in what-ifs, and he saw the futility of expending energy on wishing that cancer wasn't here. It was, and so he consciously asked himself what he could do to mitigate the disruption in our lives....He resolved to stay focused on a positive outcome and to safeguard our optimistic attitudes - which he believed were absolutely critical to the ultimate goal of wellness."
Alex held on to that belief quite well until I landed in the hospital and had one complication after another. It was then that I wrote: "He recalled sitting in the darkness of my room, his resolve to stay positive and strong shattered by the avalanche of complications I was suffering. He feared the worst, tried to believe the best, and finally decided it would be best not to feel. Anything."
Of course Alex pulled himself together and was with me every step of the way. We have debated about who suffered more, and I still believe that he did. He disagrees, but I saw the agony and the fear in his eyes time and time again. He felt helpless to "fix" me, as he so eloquently says, and yet he did help in more ways than I could recount. I wrote this after it was all over: "Cancer had forced him into the demanding role of supporting someone who has a major illness, a role no one is ever prepared to play. And yet when I was diagnosed, he responded with every ounce of his energy, better than most people could have. He stopped his life many times in order to help me rescue mine...My emotional survival and ultimate recovery are as much his victories as they are mine."
And so I believe that the people who are closest to us share the emotional impact of cancer as much as we do. "Co-patient" just seems more appropriate and more personal than "caregiver." Today - and every day - this patient and co-patient give thanks to radioimmunotherapy for giving us the chance to live and laugh and love after cancer.
Betsy