Struggling emotionally to cope with my Mom’s cancer diagnosis - looking for some support

Hi @crewgirl86 and welcome to the community, though always a little bit sorry to see someone new join our band.

Struggling emotionally at the point where you are is really so perfectly normal and as for bursting in to tears - I like to look on those as the love overflowing from my body and leaking out of my eyes.

I was in a position of working out how I would go on without my wife, living in a world where she was already gone - people often refer to pre-grief on here. I did a living with less stress course and it helped me to concentrate on living in the here and now because I could always imagine things much worse than they turned out - though I was also subject to other things landing out of the blue. I was taught breathing exercises that can help with them to - take a step back and breathe before coming forward to the next challenge.

One thing that can happen of course if there are multiple issues going on - sometimes my wife seems to have gone downhill but it is "just" an infection as a course on anti-biotics and she is fine again.

Do post on here whenever you want, someone is always listening and will have been where you are now.

<<hugs>>

Steve

Hi Crewgirl86 I know exactly how you feel. My mum was diagnosed with lung cancer 2 yrs ago(they thought initially mets) but then following surgery diagnosed as a very slow growing cancer that was completely resected. We thought we had dodged a bullet... Until a week before xmas 2020 when an MRI scan (due to back pain) showed what they again thought was bony mets. Actually turns out to be myeloma but still waiting for definitive diagnosis of the type and what treatment she will have. Shes gone from independent driving around to walking very wobbly with a stick and needing a stairlift in a few short months. I’ve had the weeks of randomly crying which is the absolute worst- not knowing when the tears would come. Currently feeling stronger and adapting to the news but live in trepidation of the bone marrow and skeletal survey results on 23rd of this month. I’m very like you, being positive but not trying to kid myself up. I must say I’m sick of cancer- my brother was diagnosed with oesophageal ca only a week before mum in December , and having lost my dad some years ago aged just 52 to gall bladder cancer- I just think we’ve had so much rubbish luck, something better has to be round the corner...

Sending you my best wishes and prayers for your mums upcoming results x

Hi Steve, thank you for replying and for your supportive words. 
The “pre-grief” makes total sense; I sort of guessed that that’s what I was doing but to hear someone else say it, and normalise it makes me feel a lot better and makes it seem “normal”. 

I’m definitely going to research the living with less stress course. I suffer from anxiety anyway so this has only heightened it sadly. Sounds like it worked well for you. 

Your comment about your wife seemingly going downhill from “just” an infection has been a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. My Mom is suffering from very low iron and blood levels, so that is severely impacting her general “health”. She had a colonoscopy 2 weeks ago which put her back in hospital 2 days later with an infection from it...the antibiotics they gave her really knocked her about too and I think it’s taken all this time for her to go back to her “new normal” so to speak. 
So thank you for providing that insight, that’s really helped me gain a bit of perspective. 

I think we are just in this terrible “middle ground” between diagnosis and treatment because she’s had absolutely no treatment so far so is just seemingly getting worse and nothing is being done. She’s only on iron tablets which we don’t think is working so it’s a constant battle to get something done for her. 

thanks again for taking the time to read my message. 

I wish you well