Hi all
it has been a real roller coaster of a month and I’m feeling completely overwhelmed but I am the only family member so just have to get on with it. My mum went to hospital with ‘appendicitis’ in January...treated with antibiotics and sent home being told it was virtually unheard of fir a second attack to happen. Happened again in March...sent home again with antibiotics... sent for scans and colonoscopy which show d some thickening of the bowl.....biopsies taken came back clear. Had follow up appointment 4 weeks ago on a Friday and consultant took her in for bowl surgery the following Thursday. Cancer was never on the agenda but consultant phoned mum a few days after discharge and informed her she had stage 2 bowel cancer and would need to take some tablet based chemotherapy. We had oncology appointment 2 days ago and they said it was stage 3 cancer and she would have 6 months of inline chemotherapy. My mum and I are the only family .we both live alone. I am unmarried have no children and live about an hours drive away from my mum. The place she will be treated is an hours drive from her house so I will be driving an hour to pick her up an hour to the treatment, an hour to take her home and an hour to get home again. I have ME which I have been managing reasonably well after fighting a 3 year disability discrimination case against my employers who unfairly dismissed me from my nhs job of 20 years. I have not been able to work again which I guess is a blessing with my needing to care for my mum but I am feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted already with taking on board everything that has happened in the last 4 weeks. I am really scared I will become ill again but feel really guilty and selfish to be worrying about my own health. I took a couple of hours yesterday to go to a mindfulness session and I had 7 missed calls from my mum and she was hysterical by the time I spoke to her because she couldn’t get me on the phone. I’m just feeling so out of my depth and overwhelmed. Not sure what I want from this post...I think I just need to get ot off my chest really.
