Mum diagnosis & starting chemo

Hi and welcome to the community, I think absolutly anyone in your situation would write very much as you do and well done for getting it down.

Sorry that your mum has issues with the PICC line insertion, it should hopefully make things esier in the future, with my wife they inserted a canula every time and that was sometimes easier said than done.

I ended up doing a living with less stress course with Magies that really helped me to focus on the here and now rather that fearing the worst and living a life of pre-grief.

Perhaps some of our advice in I'm looking after someone with cancer will be helpful both for you and your father.

<<hugs>>

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thank you for replying. Is there a link you could send me to the course you did?

What you said about ‘pre-grief’ really struck me because I think at times that is what is happening. It’s like i am grieving for so many things because right now all I feel or think is ‘Mum has cancer’. I know that cancer affects so many people but it feels so lonely and hard to manage.

Thank you for the link, I will take a look at it.

Ryan

Hi Ryan,

youve basically written everything I’m feeling........and it’s hurting and your a braver man than me......but this is my 1st post too....

mums just been diagnosed......and I’m not handling it very well....I’m a grown man with wife and 2 kids.....some good days but mostly bad.......and don’t know where to turn....and the annoying thing about it is I’m not the one with the illness....which makes me feel even worse and selfish....

Be happy to chat.....anytime.

Hey,

I don’t think I am any braver - think I just got to the point where not a lot was helping, I have been not necessarily doing my partners head in but certainly it’s tiring for him to support me, and this is my kind of ‘I have no clue where to turn to and I’ve ended up here’. That all sounds very moany but I don’t mean it to be like that. 

The main thing I have learnt is there is literally no template for how to handle this. I go from wanting to throw things to being in floods of tears and this tends to be a daily or an every other day occurrence at the moment. I don’t think it matters that you’re a grown man and married with kids. Irrespective of who we are and how grown up we or other people think we are supposed to be, it hurts like hell. I have literally never experienced pain like it, it is devastating. 

I feel similar to you as in, I’m not the one with the illness so I have those moments of why should I be feeling this so intensely, I don’t have to go through everything my Mum is but I can’t stop myself feeling how I feel. Talking about it sometimes helps and other times I just want to be alone, for example right now I am sat alone upstairs because I feel properly flat and don’t have the energy or want to do anything other than be in my own head. I guess writing this gets it out? The more I write the more it like a brain splurge of thoughts because that’s what it feels like all the time. 

I also don’t think you are selfish - try not to go down that road, I think it’s a dangerous one to start on. It is literally only yesterday that I felt able to post something and I had a moment of ‘fuck it’ I’m going to post how I feel because I am doing my own head in and I feel really lonely. I don’t think it is selfish to have those times where you feel what you feel. Like I said, it’s hard as hell. Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not someone who has it sorted, I am far far from that but I do know that going down the route of feeling selfish is not going to do me, my Mum or anyone else any good.

Happy to chat you too. I don’t know if anything I have said has been helpful but I hope at least we have solidarity in feeling similar!

Ryan

Hi Ryan, the course I did was run by Maggies, they have a number of centres around the country and also an o n line centre. It can be worth speaking to your GP too as they can often direct to sources of support local to you.

There is a real recognition now that while the focus of the NHS is of course on the patient the tsunam of the impact goes right through everybody who knows them and the better informed and supported we are the better we can be in supporting ourselves so that we can give the best support possible to those we love, and of course when someone you love is ill we all feel the pain.

Do keep talking, it really does help us to know we are not alone and just very human.

<<hugs>>

Steve

Hi, 

I’ve just joined too, under similar circumstances. My mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer last year, had emergency surgery and chemo which worked and now a year later, we are back in the same place. This time it’s worse and she’s been very unwell from the first round of chemo (FOLFOX). She is terrified to eat in case more obstructions happen or sickness. I’m trying to help but just burst into tears when I see her struggling to even eat a jelly. 

I also feel helpless and can’t face going to work with a cheery face on. Being an only child absolutely sucks at times like these when you could do with a shared burden.

Hope you and yours stay well too.