For four years my adult son has been having excruciating treatment and operations for cancer. He has now been in remission for three months, every day I'm getting worse. I am so frightened I will lose him, nothing else seems important. On the surface everyone, without exception, thinks all is good now he is in remission. It isn't, how can I start moving and living? Thank you
Hi Swisan2fe022 and a warm welcome to the Macmillan Community but so sorry to hear about your son and the challenges you are having.
First, great that your son is now in remission….. I and my family have been on my cancer journey with 2 rare blood cancers for over 25 years now and it took 17 years treatments… some very challenging to eventually hear the words Remission and NED (No Evident Disease)
I will always say it’s as hard if not harder in ‘some ways’ for the caregivers and family members looking on than it’s for the person in the bed.
Talking with others who are navigating the same support journey can help a lot.
The Community is actually divided into dedicated Support Groups (Discussion Rooms) so can I recommend you look to join and post in our…….
Carers only (if you are his caregiver)
……. support groups where you will connect with a wide range of members navigating the exact same journey.
To connect with a group click on the “Bold Italic Links” I have created above …… then once the group page opens click in the [Black - Click to Join - Banner] that appears at the bottom of the page and this will then confirm that you have joined the group.
When you are ready……. you can introduce yourself by putting up your very own post by clicking [+ Create new post] or [+] in the top right of the group page.
You can copy and paste the text from this post into your new post.
It is an emotional time supporting family so you might find this Macmillan information your feelings when someone has cancer helpful as well as this link getting help with your emotions.
The Macmillan Support Line is open between 8am-8pm (timings may differ across services) 7 days a week on 0808 808 00 00…… this service provides cancer information, practical information, emotional support or just a listening ear.
Talking to people ‘face to face’ can be very helpful so do check to see if you have any Local Macmillan Support in your area, do also check for a local Maggie's Centre as these folks are amazing.
Do get back to me if you need further help navigating the community.
Thank you for your reply I'm very grateful you took the time to reply. My son's journey has been dreadful but count my blessings every day. I'm usually an 'up and at 'em' person and during treatment my partner having prostrate cancer too) I held everything together for them both. This isn't a woe is me, I'm just trying to understand why I feel so blinking awful. I sincerely wish you all the very best going forward. 
The word ‘Why’ is interesting…… as it can be both negative, but also positive.
If n occasions I have asked why I survived my long cancer journey when some very close friends did not.
A number of years back, leading up to my 2+ years aggressive treatments we sat in our lounge with 2 other couples….. who were very good friends…. both husbands had had their diagnosis and were about to go into their treatment also.
All 6 of us agreed that what ever happened the last couple standing would live their lives to the full in a celebration of those who had went before with no regrets……
A few years later we were the last couple standing. In the early days when talking with the widows I would say “…. but why us?”……. and their answer was always been “…why not you?”….
This is all about positioning our minds in a way that helps us move forward… and not let the cancer journey define us but we define the direction.
It’s like the cancer journey….. The road we navigate on our journey both as patients and family has two directions to follow.
There are two signs along this road one sign is pointing to Pessimism, a mindset that always sees the worst will happen, not appreciating that the many treatments available can do the job, where stress and worry controls every aspect of life and as a result the journey is made extremely hard and draining.
The other sign points to Optimism, a mindset that is full of hopefulness, determination, confidence about the future and appreciates that the treatments available can turn the Lymphoma tide….. even in the most challenging storms. It’s important to continually seek to choose the optimistic direction as this simple thing can define how you walk out the cancer journey.
((Hugs))
