Diane Slomkowski knows about living with chronic pain. For years, she has suffered from fibromyalgia. Then her husband was diagnosed with colon cancer, and her own illness receded to the background as she became his caretaker.
“I have to take care of him now,” says Slomkowski, 64, who lives in Toledo, Ohio. “It’s actually made me realize what it was like for him to take care of me all those years.”
Ronald Slomkowski, 67, was first diagnosed with colon cancer three years ago. A year later, doctors reported the cancer had spread to his lungs. In the meantime, he’s undergoing constant chemotherapy. Although chemotherapy in itself no longer directly causes pain other than nausea, it regularly aggravates his lower-back arthritis, and triggers pain in his hands and feet, according to his wife Diane.
This article continues at Living With Chronic Pain and Care for Elderly