Men Caring For Wives With Breast Cancer ARE SICK, TOO!

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

I refuse to use this as an excuse for gaining about 15 pounds the last year.

I DID need to explain to myself why, after hovering around 240 for decades I slid up to 260 where I’ve been for months now.

I was vaguely aware that I wasn’t doing what I SHOULD have been doing: eating reasonably, doing SOME exercise and watching the carbs. But there didn’t seem to be any hard reason to watch myself.

Then I stumbled across this: “‘Caregivers are called hidden patients because when they go in for appointments with their spouses, very few people ask how the caregiver is doing,’ study author Sharla Wells-Di Gregorio, an assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology, said in the news release. ‘These men are experiencing significant distress and physical complaints, but often do not seek medical care for themselves due to their focus on their wives' illness.’”

Again, I don’t WANT to use this as an excuse for packing on the poundage. I need to understand myself as I continue walking alongside my wife.

Oh, then there’s the guilt about the GUILT: I feel horrible that she suffered through the hell of chemo. I ate to make myself feel better (and assuage my guilt) and packed on weight – and then felt guilty that I was getting fat because I wouldn’t be able to help my wife as much ‘cause I was feeling crappy with the weight gain…

Circular reasoning.

Now what?

I understand better now and so I resolve a couple things:

1) I will stop gorging to make myself feel better. It WON’T make me feel better in the long run. (The extra pounds have hurt my knees. I need to drop that 15 to get back to the relatively low knee pain I experienced before the weight gain.)

2) I will eat with greater attention to food VALUE (fewer empty calories, more reasonable proportions.)

3) I will NEVER eat at a buffet again. (I know from my training as an Elijah House counselor that vows are NOT good, so if I can morph that into a promise to myself, I will. Right now it’s too strong of a feeling for anything less than a vow). What I saw the night before last made me extremely sad.

4) I will work toward exercising more often. I LOVE my new bike. We need to get better acquainted!

5) I will surrender my life more fully to Jesus Christ. It has never been His intention that I take the gift of living in this country and make a pig of myself...

I’ve written about this before (http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2011/05/husbanding-bigger-middle.html), but I understand what was going on better, now.

If this makes sense to anyone who reads this, let me know!

Resource: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/23/wifes-breast-cancer-can-hurt-husbands-health-too-study
Image: http://martinisatthebluemax.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/996047012_ec26700659_o.jpg?w=640