No more treatment just symptom management

Hi Staffymama 

Welcome to the family we hope nobody has to join. Just looking at Your feelings when someone has cancer we can see how "normal" your feelings are - perhaps that helps some.

One issue sometimes with "treatment" is that the effects can be unhelpful; my wife's first bout with chemotherapy was something of an adventure that I would be happy not to repeat. Moving from treatment to symptom management can often improve the quality of life.

Never worry about posting on here - ii is a very safe space because we are all just trying to cope with what to many feels impossible - before we came here we probably felt the same.

<<hugs>>

Steve

Hey Staffymama,

I hope you are doing a bit better today.  When you are dealing with cancer, every transition is hard, and the transition to symptom management is a particularly hard one to process.  We all know that loving someone means doing everything we can to keep them alive and strong.  Accepting that at some point the most loving thing is to stop treatment is a really hard thing to wrap your head round.

Stopping treatment doesn't mean that your dad stops being looked after though.  There are a whole bunch of people who will step in where the hospital team leave off who are well equipped to look after him.  Is he stable (in which case they will likely just monitor him), or is he deteriorating (in which case he will need more care in the near term)?

Big hugs...

Pete

Hi, he is stable and I understand that he will still be looked after ️, I’m just finding it hard to accept I guess, total emotional rollercoaster, when my hubby had cancer I took everything in my stride as I had to be strong for our 13 year old son at the time, now a emotional wreck and finding it hard to deal with mum to as she really doesn’t seem to be taking it in ️

Hey

Of course. There's no rhyme or reason to how we deal with these things. But, as you say, it's a rollercoaster. Some days are worse than others.

I guess your mum and dad will deal with it in their own way and their own time. I spent a lot of time worrying about various people and how they were coping. Even once my wife died, seeing how differently members of the family grieved was really strange. The thing eventually I realised was that everyone does it differently and everyone takes time.

Of course my way of handling things is still the best. .

I hope you are doing okay today.

Pete