Hi everyone,
I haven't posted on here in a while because things have been more stable. My mum's melanoma progressed to stage 4 last September when she was given a prognosis of three to six months. She had an amazing response to the immunotherapy, and all of her tumours have shrunk significantly. Some are just traces in her skin now according to her last scan at the end of June.
But two and a half weeks ago she developed sepsis from a chest infection and had to be rushed into hospital, which was really stressful and frightening. She's okay now and back home, but she's coughing all the time and it's making me so paranoid that it's the cancer progressing, even though I know she's just had pneumonia. I think it's just reminding me of when she got ill last summer before we knew how badly the cancer had spread, and her response to the treatment feels almost too good to be true, like we're waiting for it to stop working.
It's been years since Mum's first diagnosis of stage three and eleven months since stage four, and it's just been relentless, all the things my poor mum has had to deal with, steroid myopathy and diabetes, losing her ability to walk, brain swelling from the gamma knife, seven months on intense steroids that have really damaged her body. I'm her main carer, and I feel so guilty for struggling when I know how hard this is for her, but I'm so exhausted all the time. And I keep getting hit by these waves of fear and grief. I really feel like I can't cope. My mum is only in her fifties, and I feel so lonely because none of my friends understand and just say they can't imagine or compare to their grandparents getting ill. I just wish I wasn't terrified every time she gets a cough or loses her appetite for a couple of days, and I wish I could stop thinking about the future because it doesn't help.
I think I just needed to vent. I love my mum so much, and I hate the thought of her suffering. This journey has just been so hard.
