Hi,
My mum was diagnosed with lung cancer 3 weeks ago. At the time, we thought it was just a small tumor on her lung but were then told it had spread to her spine and so was stage 4 lung cancer. Even at this point we were resolute not to give up hope, especially as we were told that the cancer was particularly receptive to chemo. A week ago,however, my mum's oxygen levels fell through the floor( day before chemo started) because the tumor was blocking her left lung and so there was an infection. Now the infection has cleared but she is still unable to breathe properly for herself and is incubated half the time. She is also extremely delirious and hallucinates: believes that there's bodysnatchers and that someone is out to kill her for her insurance. Mum is normally an extremely strong woman( she's lived with me for 19 years) and it is so extremely difficult to see her semi-'herself' one minute and talking about our plans for the future and then the next grabbing on to a pile of used tissues because 'they're the only thing she has left aside from me and dad'. Yesterday I had gone in to spend all day with her and we had quite a nice day chatting etc until the nurses had to aspirate her lungs: put a tube down her throat. This left her in huge amounts of pain and distress and she woke up saying 'please help me, please help me'. The doctors told her that there was no more painkillers for now, at which point she proceeded to take out her oxygen tube saying 'leave it a minute and see if i die'. Obviously this has had an enormous impact on me as although she is delirious I hate the idea that she could be in so much pain that she would want to end her life. The most horrific thing about this is that we have gone from a relatively positive diagnosis to me and my dad being unsure as to whether they'lll even give her the second set of chemo(though the first set did reduce her tumor enormously) and whether she'll die in the next few days, weeks, months. I am so afraid that she'll die while she's still half concious/hallucinating because then I won't get to tell her all sorts of things but I also don't want her to die in a hospital/before her and dad have had a chance to come to terms with things and say their goodbyes. At the moment I am numb a lot of the time but it weighs pretty heavily on me especially as I am doing nothing around the house( I should be at uni in Guildford but my parents live in Brussels) when I am not visiting her. The whole situation is just ripping me apart and it's all I can do to be strong for her and dad.
