Grief over T's illness

My T of 3 years has a chronic illness. He spent most of the summer in the hospital, was back in the office for a couple of weeks,and now he's gone again.
It is so hard to see this person who has been my hero, my mentor, my "surrogate parent", who has guided me through so much trauma and out to a brighter side, declining so rapidly. I have been trying to deal with this grief for months, but there is no one in my life that can help, that understands. I am on the outside of this looking in. How do I deal with this? I don't know if he is coming back this time, and while I am attached to him, I don't know if I can deal with watching him slowly die. When I am there, I feel both selfish, for talking about my silly neurotic crap, or disrespectful, for being more concerned about his well-being than my own. My heart is broken, and I'm feeling so disoriented.

He'll know when and how to handle whether or not to return to work. If he does choose to return, handling your issues may be a way for him to feel productive and give himself a reprieve from his own issues. I felt the same way about teaching when I was sick- it was a blessing to be in "teacher" mode rather than "patient" mode for a change.

Thanks, Elli-Beth...I did try to remember that the first time he returned after a long time in the hospital and this does make so much sense to me. It's hard for me to do though.

I don't know which illness he has but many chronic ones can take many years before they are a debilitating problem, other than flares ups like it sounds like yours has had this summer? I had a group T I loved with multiple sclerosis and it was long after the nearly 10 years I was in the group before she was unable to work anymore at all. Yes, she was out sick occasionally (and we had a second group leader so the group went on, though we did not talk about the other's illness) and sometimes for many weeks but there wasn't any need to immediately grieve? Maybe you can discuss someone you can see/talk to when/if your T thinks he's going to be out often in the future?

Do you have a T that fills in for him? This would be really hard for me to deal with and from experience I know that the r/s needs to be validated. I am working with new T 20 years later and still struggling with closure on the r/s with first T. Many people that are chronically ill still want to work because work gives meaning to their lives. At my work I see patients with very devastating illnesses still working from their computers in the hospital bed.Or the phone or visits from the boss. We had a doctor at work who was forced to retire because he had pancreatic cancer and then he died 2 weeks later. My advice to you is to get a transitional T and explain the situation to that T. Then if your T regains his ability to work so be it. Your r/s with him is real and will need to be grieved. In the meantime send him a card or email or something telling him how you feel. I worry my new T will die or retire or something before we are done. She is older and could retire anytime. I am sorry for your situation. I send you peace and comfort. I wish I could wash away all illness and tragedy from life but I cant, so I send validation and encouragement for your sorrow. And maybe a few tears.

Perna
ABBA seems to hit all my emotional feelings-like take a chance on me and dont go wasting all your emotion lay all your love on me