Wow, Pisces thank you so much for sharing that means so much. I think the fact that they are both chronic diseases and can flare up at anytime makes them pretty similar in terms of affect on the mind. Purely looking at the facts with my h in terms of him dealing with the illness is that
- he was amazingly brave throughout the whole illness. - after he had his last op he was supposed to go to his specialist for a check up. That was in May. He didn't go for that and when I questioned him he said they cancelled it, so I made him rearrange. He told me he had done this. - When it got to the time for the next appointment he said they cancelled it again. - In September I took matters into my own hands and phoned up his specialist myself (I did this out of concern for him as he always maintained that he didn’t have time to call from work) The specialist said he hadn't turned up for his May appointment so they had struck him off the list and had never heard from him since. I kicked up a huge fuss saying that they were lying, typical NHS etc etc. but it turns out it was true. - In October he left me after refusing to go on holiday. I left to go on the holiday saying I wanted him to think about going back to the doctors and the whole no sex thing (I was really hurt and confused that he had lied to me, refused to come on holiday and felt a bit of a fool in front of the doctors). I know, not a great way to act but I thought the tough approach would be the best one – a kick up the you know what! - Finally in January I got him to go back to the doctors to get the all clear. This was a really critical appointment as otherwise all the ops and everything beforehand would have been wasted if they hadn’t cut out all the diseased bits and to make sure the iliostomy had healed as it should. He wanted me to go with him to the hospital and also the look of relief when he came out of the appointment was immense. We just hugged. - Now he is doing nothing to manage his condition or (I assume) done any research on it. It is like he is ignoring it. He is left with some residual side effects from the operations that he has to live with and that must be hard and embarrassing for him. He forgets to go for his vitamin injections so gets quite ill again every 4 months or so.
I believe that maybe part of the problem is that I remind him of that time. The thing is he doesn't seem depressed, he just blanks it out. That is what i don't understand. I never mention anything to do with his illness now or enquire so he doesn't feel nagged. I have no idea whether I am doing the right thing though or if there is anythign I can do for him.
