Hi all. I am new here. I wanted to talk but don't feel ready to phone anyone yet. I thought this would be a good place to start.
3 years ago my mum was told she had stage 4 cancer in her lung. For 3 years she had treatment and seamed to be on top of it. The cancer was gone from her lungs and we thought we had won. She then got headaches and we where told it had spread to her brain. She had to have a shunt and they where ready to try a new treatment. In the last month she was bed bound. I did alot of her care. Even picking her up out of her chair to help her to the loo. I was also sleeping down stairs with her. Last Saturday she suddenly got really ill and past away Saturday afternoon. Before she got ill me and her looked after my nan when she died of cancer, we looked after my dad and uncle with their heart attacks and then with my other uncle who died of a stroke. But he had cancer as well. I also helped to look after him. So when my mum died I was devasted and still am.
Now I am helping my family to sort things out but I have health problems as well. I do feel a bit overwhelmed. My family are helping but I just feel like I need something else. So I thought I would come on here.
Any ideas or suggestions that anyone could give that would be great.
Thank you for your time.
Regards.
Dear Crikey74,
Firstly let me send you my sympathies and say I’m so sorry you have lost your mum. It’s one of the hardest things we all experience in our lives.
then I’m going to comment on all the wonderful care you gave her and say how lucky she was to have you there right to the end. It’s a precious time.
what really strikes me about your description of recent years is the amount of caring you’ve done.
I wonder if you’ve become the carer in the eyes of your family ? You might be a bit trapped in that role. You say you’re overwhelmed and need to address your own health problems. It might be tim
tell other family members they will have to sort stuff out. Hand things over and delegate tasks and then go and do exactly what you feel like doing. It might be walking, swimming, shopping, or being alone somewhere. For me it’s a long dog walk up to the top of a local hill with a flask of coffee and an apple. Something I spent my childhood doing with my grandma and it’s my own little private medicine still. But we are all different. My best friend spends a couple of hours doing the length of the high street charity shops. She says it always makes her feel
etter.
you say you need something else, maybe you need time and space to not do anything for anyone else. You have every right to not be a carer, or caretake anyone else. But I know from bitter experience it’s a very tough thing to step back from this role. Other people don’t want you to because it suits them to have you doing it maybe or it’s such a part of our own identity that we don’t know who we are without it
I hope things get better for you and you find the something else you need.
I hope others come along with their take on your question. What’s great about this forum is the width and breadth of different ideas about life and grief and cancer journeys.
bye for now
M
