Hi all, I’m new here. Both of my parents (early 70’s) have cancer at the moment. My dads is incurable mantle cell lymphoma but slow growing and not needing any active treatment right now. My mums is peritoneal/ovarian and as part of the diagnosis she now has a stoma and is part way through chemo. Tough drugs: carboplatin and taxol. Her body is struggling and she has now had to have 3 blood transfusions. Once she’s through the chemo, she has pretty major abdominal surgery to come. BUT her oncologist is clear it is NOT incurable as she was first told by the gastro surgeon, but is treatable instead.
Mum is stoic and knows she just has to get through the treatment and to the other side. Dad, however is behaving as though she is about to die and has started grieving already. He’s definitely not coping. He already has depression and is an alcoholic, and I just don’t know how to help him. Mum has already screamed at him to stop talking about things as though she’s dying, because she is trying to focus on living. But that’s where his head is taking him.
Is there counselling out there that won’t just be platitudes and might stop him grieving someone who isn’t dead, and isn’t dying, but is just going through an incredibly hard time with the chemo? He’s had lots of counselling for alcoholism over the years but he doesn’t truly engage with it. How can I get through to him?
Mum and I find it so hard because we just don’t think in the same way.
btw, I’ve also had breast cancer twice (I’m 47), and mum was recently found to have the BRCA2 gene, which I probably have too. I’m waiting to be tested again.
