My Dad who turned 78 yesterday was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer 3 weeks ago after them missing a red flag X-ray in Jan had been treating him for chest infections .
He is failing rapidly and was pretty much sent home with a bottle of oral morphine after being showed the harrowing scans and hearing the devastating news .
Im finding it so hard to get my head round as is my Mum . Emotions swinging from upset to anger denial and absolute fear of what’s to come and how we are going to cope . Already his coughing and breathlessness just freaks me out inside when I am with him and trying to be strong for him and my mum .
Guess I’m just struggling with where to start with it all .
Hi PAW72
Sorry to hear about your dad, we well know how looking backwards it can seem that clear signs were missed but in the most practical of senses there is not really much we can do about changing the past.
If we look at Supporting a family member with cancer we can see how common your emotions are; that "being strong" bit is much easier to say than to do. I ended up doing a living with less stress course that really helped me, firstly learning to live in the moment meant I could appreciate each day rather than living in the dark future I could not control. The conscious breathing exercises were great too in dealing with the unexpected - plenty of that was thrown our way too.
One thing my wife hates is when someone tells her she is brave - as she points out she did not choose to have cancer but it going to make the most of every day.
<<hugs>>
Steve
