Is it possible to have PTSD from watching a loved one die from cancer?

Yes it is possible to get PTSD from watching someone suffer so much, there are specialist services in our area, maybe in yours too. Go to your GP and ask specifically. If you don't get help from them I would ring the helpline here and ask for guidance. Your dad would be so proud of you. We do the best we can at the time, we all make mistakes, it's part of grieving.

Good Luck

love

Hi, the fact you can describe this time period so vividly illustrates the level to which you were there for your daddy when he most needed you.  You do sound like the replaying is becoming too much, so speak to someone you trust, internalising this cannot be an option.  I am 100% sure your dad would not want you being so hard on yourself.  You have been a wonderfully supportive child to your daddy and the good memories will start to re-emerge.  Mind yourself  x.   

Hi ,

I'm so sorry to hear about your father and the emotions you've experienced since his death. 

I remembered some previous discussions on the community which I thought might be useful for you to read as they mentioned similar flashbacks and guilty feelings like you have mentioned.

One is from a member whose husband died. Post traumatic stress in bereavement

We also had a webchat over 2 years ago with a bereavement charity called The Loss Foundation. I think the information will still be helpful and relevant. Please do look through it and see if the information is informative. The questions are answered from around the end of page 2 onwards and there is a lot of information and explanation of grief.

Cruse is a bereavement charity who you can call and speak to if you'd like to talk. (0808 808 1677) Our support line also has a lot of support from professionals on 0808 808 00 00, Mon-Fri, 9-8.

I hope you'll find some answers too and I think it's great you've come on this group to try and get support and answers from others.

Please get back to me if you need some more help.

Best wishes

Jess

Macmillan Community Team

Hello, can I just say, if you have not used the phone number bellow try calling to see if Mcmillans can give advice on this.

I know exactly how you are feeling. I watched my Mum die from lung cancer. She was extremely fit and went from that to passing away in five short months. She so wanted to live. She had so many plans. I ended up as Mums sole carer as Dad also recently died so she became dependent on me. 

I took her to every appointment. She wanted to die at home. I was absolutely terrified but for her sake I agreed. I was on my own with her as all I had was someone who changed her morning & evening. Macmillan didnt come, Marie Curie had no one who could come so it was just me. I have never felt so scared being responsible for someone who was dying. It was MY decision for her going on morphine. It hastened her death but I have no regrets. 

Its been 7 months now. I had terrible dreams at first, they were so real. I couldn't believe she had gone. It wasnt fair. She wasnt ready. How could she leave me??

BUT DONT feel guilty!! You really did all you could. Far more than anyone else and your Dad would have known this even though he may not ever have had the chance to say it. 

Your siblings can look back with fondness as mine do but you were there for the nitty gritty. You lived it with him. 

Feel very, very proud of what you did for him. What you did was the greatest thing a child can do for a parent. 

You couldnt stop his pain - that wasnt your job or your responsibility. You did your job by being there for him. That is all he would have expected of you xxx God Bless xxx

See your doctor. But also give yourself a break- you have been through a very traumatic thing - almost the most traumatic thing we can endure. But you did it because you loved. You still love. And you are grieving.

I find comfort from looking at pictures from before mum was ill. Years ago, the mum I grew up with. I try and block the ill memories because they hurt too much.

Hang on. It's such early early days xxx 

Hey Sara,

This is the first time since may 31 2016 that I have accepted the weight of my grief on my life from losing my mother Elizabeth. I could totally break you with the details of her 9 month battle with small cell lung cancer. Long story short. She loved me unconditionally. Loved my dad but he liked the local bar better. She left our large family in Ohio to Florida to be with me. Got her RN at 53, and my children would escape to her house for special weekends that made them feel free as a mustang. She decided to retire in November 2015. She fell at work Late July 2015 and hurt her ribs, had an exray, then I watch her suffer during an unprepared 3 days of hospice and suffocate on Memorial Day 2016 before the nurse arrived for her last months. No time to talk. Couldn’t make her upset. Last two days I caught her watching me cuz she worried how I would take it. I showed nothing so she would not worry. Last morning she said “I’m scared”. I just said “me too my beautiful momma”. I still think of her every day, and cry when I’m alone. The thought of the hell my wife and children went through with me hurts the most. It’s been a while but still can’t see through the anger and pain. I’m so sorry for your pain from your father, and I’m sorry to share my pain on top. Stay strong and love hard!!! Thank you!!! RJ

Your father was a warrior!!! You should be very proud of him Sara

Hi, I have not been on here for sometime, but it’s coming up to my mums 3rd anniversary and I find this forum so helpful through the harder times. I just wanted to say that I watched my mums very premature and horrific death while she was in a side room a few days before Xmas. We didn’t have any good care and I nursed her myself. It was so traumatic and I was in the same clothes for 3 days straight as I couldn’t leave her. I suffered PTSD too. I know my mum would have described me as a good daughter, but I’m haunted by the feelings I let her down in her final hours somehow. Too many ways to mention. But it does get easier to come to terms with the end bit and although I am on the forum again, I do want to reassure you, that it’s still early days. I have to trust that I did all I could st the time and the circumstances. Xx it will pass and all will be well x

Hello,

So sorry for your loss and trauma x  It's the worst pain to lose loved ones.

I think I have PTSD and have had it for some time now but I haven't got myself checked out.  My mother died in 2010 from Breast Cancer and my father died in 2017 from a very rare small cell lung cancer.  Mum never smoked and hardly drank (only at Xmas).  She was given six months to live from first prognosis but she fought for two years with a brief period of remission.  Most of that time though she was in alot of pain and discomfort and then when it spread to her lungs, she started having breathing problems.  On the final day of her life she woke up in great pain and was sitting on the edge of the bed holding her side.  I came rushing into her bedroom and I shall never forget the pain in her eyes.  She was rushed to hospital but she had to wait in a queue!  I kept going up to the Receptionist and telling her that my mother needs pain relief immediately because she's in agony from cancer but she still had to wait.  Finally, after an hour she was put in ICU and dad and my sister arrived.  She was groaning in pain and we had to keep getting the nurse to give her more and more morphine.  A few hours before she passed away she wanted to be sick but only blood and bile came out of her mouth.  I stood by her side and she held onto me and called my name.  I comforted her and luckily she fell back into an unconscious state.  In the final moments she kind of woke up and gasped for air so my father and my sister and I went to comfort her and told her to sleep, then she passed away.  I held onto mum and hugged her and I didn't want to let her go and leave the room.

Then seven years later, we were shocked to hear the news that dad had cancer but the doctor initially thought it was a slow growing type.  Dad didn't hardly ever drink (only at Xmas) and never smoked a cigarette in his life. To our horror a few months later he was then given less than six months to live but this was a huge overestimate.  He went downhill rapidly, lost weight, had breathing problems, started having pain in his heart and appendix area.  He was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack but they later discovered the small cell lung cancer had spread all over his body including a tumour behind his heart.  He was rushed to hospital and put on the cancer ward.  He had equipment to help him breathe and lots of medication and remained the same for two weeks but in the last week of his life he started getting nose and ear bleeds so they cauterize his blood vessels.  Then he became so weak he couldn't get out of bed to go to the toilet so I had to wheel him there.  In the final 48 hours of his life his condition became out of control.  He had a really bad breathing attack and the doctors had to sedate him and then at nighttime he was crying out for help.  We asked the nurse to get the night doctor but she told us he was "busy" on the cardiac ward.  He eventually came to give dad more medication but that was a couple of hours after he initially cried out in pain.  During that time I was fighting the nurse to get help as quickly as possible and she seemed reluctant.

Since mum and dad died I have flashbacks nearly every day, high anxiety, severe bouts of depression accompanied by loss of energy, sleeping problems, tearfulness and a low threshold to stress even though I'm on anti-depressants.  I worry about losing my sister and niece because they are all I have left of family.  We don't have grandparents or cousins or anyone else.  And I'm so, so guilty that I couldn't do more to help my parents, to save them from all the pain.  I'm 36 now and I think this PTSD will be with me forever.