My father has recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer and is due to go in for surgery in a weeks time. I live around 300 miles away from my parents and they are both in their late 80s. My mum is caring for my dad and they are struggling on their own. I have been with them for 3 weeks but have had to come home to do some stuff and be wiith my family. My family are great and have come up to stay and visit me and my parents when I am there.
I'm feeling very vulnerable, anxious and torn at the moment as I feel I should be with my Dad and supporting my mum who is caring for him as well as at home with my family.
My dad is quite stoical about his diagnosis and isn’t worried by the surgery or any further diagnosis. My mum and I are the worriers and I feel I should be there to support and help.
I know this is hard and is a rollercoaster but this is the first time I’ve experienced anything like this and so reaching out feels right for me to see if there is anything I could be doing.
hi BellaN
First and foremost - well done for reaching out, it took me much longer before I first asked for help. In my case I walked in to the local Maggies centre and over about a hour cried out my story. Very nice lady helped me work through my issues.
Have your mum and dad had a needs assessment and carers assessment? This process would help identify what needs they have for support and how they might get it - this responsibility for this falls to the local council and they can start looking here
If this is in place it might help you some and then we can look at your feelings when someone has cancer, lots of things I recognize in this - my wife has Leiomyosarcoma - in her case we are living with rather than any alternative. Sometimes it can seem people actually with the cancer cope better than the rest of us - part of this can be around issues like pre-grief where we feel the loss of our planned future and also think how will we cope without them.
Lots of people find mindfulness training helpful, learning to appreciate the world we live in every day or sometimes just every hour.
<<hugs>>
Steve
