"Two heads think better than one"

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Josef Huber's wife Anita * fell ill with breast cancer for the first time in 2002 - when she was 38. After many years of cancer-free life, the tumor came back. In the interview, he tells how Josef Huber is doing with his wife's illness

Mr. Huber, if you could, would you relieve your wife of the disease?

You mean I have cancer? No. First of all, nobody wants to have cancer voluntarily. Second, it wouldn't improve if I had my wife's tumor - then we would still have it.

Your wife has undergone the whole therapy procedure: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. What was the worst for you?

Of course you suffer with everything. The worst part for me was that I always drove Anita to chemotherapy. I did this even though I knew she would feel bad afterwards - as if I wanted to add to her suffering. Chemotherapy is so contradictory: it is supposed to help the patient, but every infusion is a poison that also makes you sick.

Your wife has changed externally through the therapies. How did you cope with it?

My wife's hair fell out as a result of chemotherapy, but that wasn't so bad, it is growing back again. At that time I was allowed to shave off her hair. I had to think about how we had once bet among friends how much money one of us would have our long curls cut off. The price was very high back then. It was more unusual to see Anita without eyebrows and eyelashes.

How did you and your wife support each other?

At first we were overwhelmed, everything fell over us and we lost the ground under our feet. Later we always thought together about what to do and when. Two heads think better than one. Then there are the little everyday things, for example preparing dinner when the other person is exhausted.

Relatives often suffer extremely emotionally. Have you ever been worse off than your wife?

No. My wife has the weaker role in our relationship, I think. My job is to support you, to be strong and to make up for your weakness a bit. After all, it doesn't help if I also show weakness. I never signal that I could lose hope, but always try to build up my wife.

What helped you to get through the period of illness?

The confidence to be in the best possible hands in a clinic was particularly helpful. But the work was also good for both of us. She gave us structure, and even when we had a bad phase, we got ourselves up because of her. Information events also helped us. You have to overcome the fear of confronting the topic and other people affected. From the second visit on, it worked out well for us.

What are you most afraid of in connection with the disease?

Sometimes I'm afraid I might end up like someone I know. The doctors told him there was no chance for his wife. The second time I met him, she had passed away. I am afraid that my wife will eventually get worse and worse and she will die. And I'm afraid of their suffering and my loneliness - we have no children.

Have you ever found it unfair that your wife in particular had cancer?

At the beginning you ask yourself: Why us? Why so young Where does it come from? But at some point you have to accept that it can affect anyone. And a lot of them get cancer. You don't notice them if you don't have a case in the family. But now I see cancer cases all over the neighborhood.

Did you get answers to your why-questions?

I've thought about it a lot, but couldn't find any explainable reason. If you catch a cold, you can attribute it to cold feet - and put on thick socks to prevent it. You can't do that with cancer.

Your wife has had breast cancer again after eight years.

Yes. We hadn't expected that at all. After all, medical science assumes that five years without recurring cancer mean a cure. Unfortunately, Anita felt a knot again. The time until the second definitive cancer diagnosis was terrible. You are in a state of limbo between hope and despair.

And when the doctors told you it was cancer again?

Openness is important in medicine, but it hurts. As long as the recurrence is theoretically possible, it's a long way off, but when it does happen in practice, it's a slap in the face. We were very afraid of losing the fight at some point. It's like chess: you make a mistake, sacrifice a piece, move again, lose another piece. And at some point the opponent's power increases so much that you are defeated.

What happened to you the second time?

My wife had to have two operations to completely remove the cancer. Visually, the result is no longer the same as it used to be, but that's not so important for me. If the doctors had removed the breast completely, there would now be large scars all over the place - I imagine that would be worse.

Have you and your wife thought about breast augmentation?

Yes, at first we thought it wasn't a problem at all, but there are major downsides. If you build yourself up with a piece of back muscle, you could have problems with your back, and an implant is not entirely unproblematic. So we decided against it and my wife wears bras with pads. You can't see anything from the outside.

One study found that around 20 percent of men leave their wives when they become seriously ill. Has that ever crossed your mind?

I've heard that before. We also had moments when I doubted. If my wife had slept badly and she was unmotivated and lacking motivation, I sometimes didn't know what to do with us. To a certain extent you can compensate for the weakness of the other, but when you run out of breath it can get critical. I can understand that it breaks some relationships. We got married after the first illness.

Were there any family members or friends that you lost because of the difficult situation?

Family members do not. My sister-in-law also had breast cancer, which made her and Anita even stronger. Some people we knew found it difficult when we told them that my wife had breast cancer when she was 38 years old. This is scary for many. But most of them tried to comfort - that helped us.

Has anyone ever asked how you are?

Everyone always asked how my wife was doing. Only once did someone want to know how I actually felt. I was very surprised and blocked it. As a chess player, I'm used to keeping emotions behind.

How did you find your way back to your normal life?

After the first illness, we went on vacation to take some distance from the stress of the treatment and to soak up the sun. After that we never resumed our normal life in the sense that we brought a dog with us from Greece. The fact that he showed up at this point on the beach and stayed with our motorhome was a sign from above that he belongs to us. Anita really wanted him. The dog was the best that could have happened to us, it turned our whole life inside out.

You now have three dogs. Why are they doing you so good?

My wife used to think that going for a walk was a waste of time, but now she enjoys being out with the dogs several times a day. That is healthy. In addition, the dogs give us a common task. They make our lives more familiar.

Apart from the dogs, has anything changed in your life?

You suddenly realize that life is finite and that this end can come faster than you thought as a young person. At the time, for example, I really wanted to have a career, but now some goals in life are being put into perspective. Today I enjoy it when I escape the hamster wheel, come to rest and have time to think. Also, we no longer postpone things that we want to do. I once read a story that might illustrate this: A man clears his wife's lacy underwear out of a chest where it was kept for special times. But the woman died without ever wearing the underwear. That shouldn't happen to us.

Is there anything positive that you can get from the disease?

Maybe we've both gotten stronger and nothing can knock us down so quickly. However, cancer is like a heavy burden that lies upon you and hinders you. My wife once sat on the beach before the illness and dug her hands in the sand. Beautiful old, large seashells appeared that were hidden there. Instead of joy, I feel sadness when I think about it now. The lightheartedness has been lost. The fear that the cancer could come back always hangs over us.

Thank you for talking to us, Mr. Huber.

* All names have been changed by the editorial team.

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