Lost Mum to Lung Cancer

The perfect word, I meant.

I'm so sorry Jason and everyone for your loss. I too lost my Mum earlier this month. 

The last couple of days were absolutely brutal - we had hospice at home during the day and emergency community nurses but we had no idea what we were doing. Sleep deprivation heightened every emotion until she died early in the morning just before sunrise.

To begin with I was really angry that Mum had chosen to die at home not knowing we wouldn't have any overnight support other than nurses if we called them. And I was angry that the overnight support wasn't available because of staffing issues. Mum had been the poster child for the local hospice and they weren't even there when we needed them.

I've got over that anger now and I'm mainly just empty. She was a massive personality, we spoke every day, we texted several times a day and now my world is too quiet. 

Most friends aren't sure what to say and I generally just carry on as normal when I'm out and about. I think that's the key thing though, people aren't sure what to say - there's only so many times that you can say 'I'm sorry, how are you feeling?' So it might be they haven't forgotten, they're just not sure what to say. 

Sorry, I've made this all about me and I hadn't intended to. I wanted to offer some support and say that I know where you're coming from. I think it's 'normal' to feel like this, there are some things I can do fairly easily but others, like sitting at my desk and working, I can't get my mind to it at all. 

I had been seeing a counsellor in the run up to all of this because I was finding it hard to cope with the diagnosis and what was to come. It has helped, I've seen her once since Mum died and her suggestions are to not try to feel different. Hard because we'd all rather feel anything than this. 

I hope this helps in some small way to say that you're not alone. x

I’m so sorry to hear about your dad my wife of 46 years died 2 weeks ago she to was first diagnosed 4 years ago and although initially she was first told apart from chemo there was little else that could be done however she had chemo and through the initial success of that she was abe to be operated on and she underwent a hysterectomy and the surgeon who did the operation said he believed he’d cut it all out in addition she underwent radiotherapy to clear anything up unfortunately more was found in other areas and she was put on a trial as the Royal Marsden this also seem to work but then more of the buggers were found so she came of the trial and sent back to her oncologist for more treatment she only had one session of docirubacin which made her feel ill so that was withdrawn and told there was nothing more could be offered from that day on she lost all hope and went down hill resulting in massive weight loss and other complications which ultimately resulted in her death 2 weeks ago in my opinion she was let down by her oncologist. 
sorry to give you chapter and verse but as you can tell I’m so angry 

Hi Jason,

I'm so sorry for your loss, the pain of losing your mum is life changing.

There is no time limit of when you will feel "ok" but a month is such a short time since your mum died.  Life will never be the same again, you will never be the same again but life will continue and time will keep ticking by even if you wish it wouldn't.  

I felt lost, bereft, vacant, so many other feelings that I can't put into words for months and months after my mum died.  I kept saying to myself, I should be feeling better by now but I didn't because I wasn't allowing myself to grieve because I was too busy telling myself to "get a grip"  The best thing I did was allow myself to grieve, to feel the loss of my wonderful mum to the very core of my being without running or hiding from those bloody awful emotions and slowly I started to come back to the real world, began to find happiness again. 

I still have days when I'm overwhelmed with her loss, I have come to terms with the fact that I think I will always have days like that and that's OK.

Be patient and kind with yourself and know that at some point you will have good days again and life will feel like life again.

Take care of yourself 

Jo x