I am a 70-year-old male who met a wonderful woman in February of 2019. Much to my own surprise, I proposed marriage three months later. She moved in with me and we've had a great year together. Oddly enough, if I had it to do over again, I don't think I would have proposed. The few bad times, as rare as they are, usually found me wishing I was alone. But I thought I had matured out of that. The worst possible event has convinced me otherwise.
She recently had hip replacement surgery that has left her in chronic pain and with uncertain prospects for recovery. I have become her caretaker 24/7. In addition to all the usual issues ("what happened to MY life..."), I have some experience with this. I tried to serve as a full time caretaker to my late mother afflicted with dementia some years ago. It nearly killed me. LITERALLY! I wound up in the hospital for five days.
Naturally, I would prefer not to repeat that history. I think I can do the extra laundry, clean the house and wait on my finance hand and foot. What I CANNOT do is watch her suffer in agony while waiting for the next dosage of semi-ineffective opioid pain medication. I could not watch my 92-year-old mother go through that either and when the option came to allow her to die peacefully in palliative care, it was a comparatively "easy" decision.
This is far different. Karen is only 67. Living with sexual impotency is one thing. Living with the practical circumstantial impotency of being unable to deliver a loved one from chronic pain is MY emotional disability. I want very much to end an engagement I should not have entered into much less enter into a marriage under conditions I would never ordinarily consider were I just beginning a dating relationship.
I wouldn't think of doing it at this point, however. What little family she has is several states away. And I have none. I am committed to trying to facilitate whatever recovery she might realize over the next several months. Assuming something like that happens, however, I am strongly tempted to break things off at that point so that I never have to face the possibility of something like this again.
I, myself, would rather die totally alone and racked with pain in my own bed. I would no more wish my dependency on another than to have it imposed on me.
Am I wrong?
In my world, I would take Karen to a "different" surgeon(s) to find out if there are any other options (such as revision surgeries to cure the root cause of her pain so she doesn't have to live the rest of her life in severe pain).
That's what I would do in "my" world (whether I was still in love with her or not). Everyone is different thus handles situations differently. I'm not a person who accepts what a doctor/surgeon says until I get different medical opinions. With my own personal experience with doctors I do NOT place them on a pedestal as they are human and make mistakes.
Jenna
If any of these other physicians suspect that the root cause of her pain could be successfully addressed with additional surgery, then I am quite certain she would consider that.
But, yes, determining the ROOT cause of her pain is the primary objective right now and it makes no more sense to me to assume that a revision surgery is the answer to that root cause than to assume that it isn't. I am open to whatever diagnosis makes the most sense and, sadly, according to the pain management doctor, it is looking more and more like CRPS. There are a myriad number of different ways to treat CRPS, but most of them appear to be only marginally successful.
We will see if the neurologist comes up with anything radically different on Tuesday.
IMO, you seemed to have moved very swiftly, probably too swiftly, on marriage proposal and joint house ownership, which has added complications to your life.
Are you right or wrong? Not sure. Marrying or staying with someone you feel you can't care for when they are in dire straits seems wrong to me. That would appear to me to rule out any marriage for you
I do think that your feelings/reactions now are, at least in part, tied to your experiences with your mother and that stay or go you would benefit from some professional help in working these out. It seems to me you are not ready for the commitment of marriage.
That doesn't make you right or wrong or a bad person We all have made some unwise decisions and, hopefully, learn from those experiences.
I commend you on the proposed path of staying with Karen until she has a way ahead independent of you, and of you getting legal advice to resolve the complications of your present arrangement.
But in many respects, this is less about my mother than the poor example set by my father. But merely bringing THAT up only cues the brick throwers here to start assaulting me for making excuses for myself.
But, yes, I know EXACTLY where you are coming from, and you are right.
On Tuesday, over two months from her initial hip replacement surgery, we FINALLY had our first neurological evaluation complete with nerve conduction studies. The doctor flatly declared that Karen had suffered severe nerve damage with several nerves or groups of nerves having been completely severed. Much of it was technical and over my head, but I think the total damage was placed at about 80 - 90%. I specifically asked him about nerve reattachment surgery (something else I had researched), and he all but ruled it out based on WHERE the nerves had been severed.
Karen keeps clinging to whatever shred of hope any clinician even mentions in passing. Meanwhile, I have never been more depressed in my life and I cannot keep from believing that she will never regain use of her leg. I certainly do not think that physical therapy has a ghost of a chance of being productive until some doctor figures out how to mitigate her pain so that she can substantially participate in, not only her scheduled outpatient therapy, but actually do all the exercises she is requested to do at home.
At some point I will probably get some emotional counseling from a therapist, but, for the moment, that's how things are going.
You both have suffered big losses in the past few months. That takes a lot of processing and adjustment, I know you want to do what you can to "fix" things and this does not look very fixable at this point. That's a very hard pill to swallow.
You are in the caregiver role and caregivers need to look after themselves - you know like in a plane - put your oxygen on first. I hope you are dong some things for you in all of this. Eventually counselling would be good, I am sure.
Relentless intractable pain is a h*ll of a deal as is being on strong drugs for the pain.
I hope you find some support here and keep us up to date.
Prayers for you and for Karen. (((((((((((hugs)))))))))))
I'm wondering if there are any teaching hospitals in your area. I've found that doctors who participate in teaching and interacting in that environment are often ahead of the curve on applicable research. In my area, they in many ways are light years ahead of some of the local practitioners.
I also found some good and understandable info on CRPS from the NIH. I've relied on their articles and found them very useful, when they're not too technical. Note their observations on PT.
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Complex-Regional-Pain-Syndrome-Fact-Sheet#:~:text=CRPS%20is%20characterized%20by%20prolonged%20or%20excessive%20pain,CRPS-I%20%28previously%20known%20as%20reflex%20sympathetic%20dystrophy%20syndrome%29.
Also, please check your PMs.
I follow on Facebook a page set up for one of the police officers severely injured in an ambush shooting of cops a few years ago. He is basically now a quadriplegic and will need lifelong care, which his caring parents are providing.
He was engaged to be married to a very caring woman who loyally stuck by him for about a year or so after the shooting. But then there seemed to be some general understanding that she was young, and that she needed to be able to move on with a life in which his lifelong care was not her lifelong responsibility.
On the face of it, you want to hate the woman. What happened to "till death do us part" even though they were not yet actually married? What happened to love, loyalty, duty? Yet I totally understand the woman's situation. Things totally changed, and she apparently recognized what she could and could not handle. So I would caution people not to judge.
For this case, my suggestion would be not to just totally abandon your fiancee until you get a better sense of her future care needs and prospects for recovery. You did complicate your life more by the sharing of a house when you now want no legal or other entanglement with this woman. Not sure how you get that resolved. I will say that you should do what you feel best for YOU, no matter what you may have promised in the past, and no matter how others may judge. You don't have an obligation to provide lifelong care, and if she is a decent person, she wouldn't want that from you either. Follow your heart and good luck!