Today is one year since my daughter was given her cancer diagnosis. She has stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, spread to her lymph glands and lungs. She is 44 years young. It’s been a long hard road with many ups and downs. As she is single and been quite poorly she has come home to live with us. She is also type 1 diabetic, since she was 7 years old, and 8 years ago was finally diagnosed with Addison’s disease after a long struggle to get the diagnosis.
She is the most loving, caring, positive and happy person you could know, loved and admired by everyone. It’s so terribly unfair. I would do anything for it to go away and leave her safe and well. But I can’t and I feel so sad and helpless. I must keep strong and positive for her, no matter how exhausted I feel.
we have been so careful throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, self isolating and protecting her, having all the vaccines and until a few weeks ago it was fine. Then the virus struck, first my daughter, who was rushed into hospital with covid pneumonia and sepsis, followed by me and then my husband! After a very scary time and despite the prognosis, she recovered and came back home to us. We are now suffering with fatigue and anxiety wondering if it has caused any detrimental effects on the cancer. The worry is endless. This is the first time I have shared my feelings as I am fiercely independent but now realise sharing may help in some way. Thank you for taking the time to read my message. X
Hi Elle LL and welcome to our community though we are always a little bit sorry to see anyone join our club and perhaps even more so in the case of a parent carer.
I can definitely relate to the "finally diagnosed" bit with my wife's cancer - the doctors had suspected cancer for some time and almost to the exclusion of anything else; sepsis is also deadly serious and ended up putting Janice in hospital in a coma for a week - she only remembers waking up in intensive care, my memories are more vivid.
If we look at Your feelings when someone has cancer I certainly recognize a lot of the feelings you describe. Something that really helped me was a living with less stress course that helped me focus on what is happening here and now and enjoy the good days. Conscious breathing exercises are great for dealing with the unexpected but also helping me to relax.
I would like to thank you for sharing your story too, there will be many who relate to your story and it can help them feel that bit more normal, as we know 1 in 2 people now have a cancer diagnosis at some point and when we include carers and family pretty much everyone is going to be affected. There has been a lot of work on helping to make talking about cancer easier some of which we can see here.
<<hugs>>
Steve
