My mum has Stage 4 breast cancer. She didn't want to know timeframes. Her last CT scan the cancer in the bones was stable. She is very reluctant to go too far for fear of diarrhoea or being sick (as has happened). She's fed up in the house and it's making her snappy and irritable. I get fed up being they one who has to make everything sound upbeat and jolly!
Sorry to hear about your mum, my wife also did not want to know timeframes and I really struggled with that. However six years on she keeps surprising her oncologist as to how well she does and we are very happy to talk about living with cancer rather than anything else.
I can relate to your mum's fears though, neither is very easy to cope with and one way or another pretty much everyone in our family has been there at one point in time.
One thing that can sometimes be helpful is to talk actually about how we feel. Nobody really can be upbeat and jolly all the time - if we look at Supporting a family member with cancer we can see how "normal" we are.
<<hugs>>
Steve
