Wearing us out

Husband feeling marginally better was very shortlived - he's back to feeling absolutely awful, and is in so much pain when he pees.  It's horrible, mostly for him of course but also for me, as I hate him being in so much pain and knowing there's nothing I can do for him.  We slept - well I say slept, what I mean is we spent the night - in separate rooms, but neither of us got much sleep again as he's having to get up for a pee so many times.  This has been going on for so many weeks now (since April) and it's just so draining, both of us feel so down about it.  

It's affecting our lives in so many ways - obviously it's making him feel so unwell all the time, he can't be far away from a loo which means it's difficult for us to go out anywhere (plus he's embarrassed about people seeing/hearing him in so much pain).  We only have the one loo which is a bit awkward at times - when he needs to go, he needs to go RIGHT NOW, which is awkward if I'm in there!   I have bought him a pee bottle and some male incontinence pads but so far he's not used them, he absolutely hates the thought of using them.  I do understand, he just finds the whole idea of it totally shameful, a typical male reaction.  But if it helped him, then he should use them - most women would, right?

I guess that's the thing - women talk about this sort of stuff, men don't.  I have tried to explain to him that, according to the doctors (and what I've read), most men over the age of 50 will be starting to have prostate problems, and by husband's age (68) an enlarged prostate and the associated problems will be quite common (by the age of 80 nearly all men will have them).  So there are literally 1000s and 1000s of men having exactly the same problems he is - they just don't talk about it!

We both want to go and visit my mum (who is still in hospital) - no chance of that right now, however.  We have commitments and appointments that we have to keep changing, when husband's not well enough.  The dog isn't getting many long walks - she gets walked twice a day, she's just not getting the long 1 or 2 hour walks or beach walks that she normally gets at least a couple of times a week.  We're not having days (or even half days) out, because he's just not well enough.  Although, to be fair, the weather's not been too good anyway.  He's not doing the gardening that he normally does, either for us or for the people he usually helps out.  And from a purely selfish point of view, I'm not getting much time to myself as he's here nearly all the time.  Which means the telly's on all the time, with a load of crap stuff that I would never watch (and he often goes to sleep within minutes of putting the damn thing on anyway!).  When I'm here on my own, I almost never have the TV on, preferring music stations on the radio or my CDs, or even just silence.

Husband feels down and depressed, which isn't like him, and I feel stressed up to the eyeballs.  We're both completely knackered from lack of sleep.  He's got yet another emergency GP appointment this morning, I really hope they can do something for him as neither of us can cope with this much longer.  And chronic illness is just so isolating - we can't socialise much - well, we haven't at all recently - it's embarrassing to talk about, and people don't want to hear us banging on about it anyway.  I find myself crying a lot lately, because it's just so bloody hard.  I don't do it in front of husband, I shut myself away, I wouldn't want him feeling even more down than he already is.