Hi everybody. Hoping you all can help me. Unfortunately I found out last week that my dad has got cancer in his lungs and liver. He is 65 years old and already had emphysema prior to his cancer diagnosis. He smoked cigarettes most of his life but switched to vaping a few years ago.
Currently he is in a lot of pain as his liver is very swollen. He's been prescribed morphine, dexamethasone, and dihydrocodeine. Those seem to be helping but only temporarily.
He was supposed to have his first appointment with a lung cancer specialist today but was in too much pain to attend hospital and we have rescheduled for later this week.
I am here because I am feeling very overwhelmed with all of this and would be very grateful for any advice any of you can share with me. I am especially keen to hear from people who have gone through a similar experience with a loved one. What treatment helped? How did you get through it?
Thank you.
Hi
Sorry to hear about your dad, your reaction it perfectly normal. For me it is my wife who has the cancer.
What helped me most was when I did a living with less stress course with Maggies. Perhaps the most useful bit was around mindfulness - living in the here and now, sometimes we talk of taking things a day or even an hour at a time - with cancer it can be so easy to spend much of our time asking ourselves how we will cope without our loved one, so much we sometimes call it pre-grief.
Next best in the maggies course was conscious breathing, it can really help stop me getting overwhelmed when "something" happens but it is also really good for relaxation too - helping to get a good nights sleep can be really quite important.
The transcendental mediation bit did not really work for me - but that was the point of giving a range of tools.
Sharing experiences on here can be very helpful, we all have rubbish days but there will always be someone here to step in, pick you up and brush you down - and we can do it together - we have not really got a choice after all. One thing my wife hates is when someone calls her brave - I will run the other direction at that point!
<<hugs>>
Steve
