Hello all, my 70 y/o dad likely has prostate cancer. We are still awaiting one last test, but we are told it’s almost certainly cancer.
I know that so far as cancers go, this is one with a better outlook and quite common for his age, etc. I am a 34 y/o adult woman, married, with my own young baby, family are all financially stable and otherwise mostly healthy. My mom is even a doc herself and calm and ready to move through treatment with my dad.
Even still, I’m finding myself in a surprising amount of pain and fear, from uncertainty about an upcoming overseas holiday I had planned to take with my spouse and child (and anger that it along with other plans are upended and then overwhelming guilt that I’m thinking about it at all), to denial (we were told it was most likely NOT cancer initially), to feeling like I am free falling.
Please, anyone who has been here, if you can tell me how to get through this mess of feelings right now. I am looking for a counselor or therapist as well, but I live in a city where finding someone can take a bit (not in the UK), and part of me doesn’t have the energy to go through finding one who’s a good fit, etc, when I have a demanding job and baby, too.
Hi Poodlemom
If we look at Your feelings when someone has cancer I know I recognize a lot of what I went through, they are all very real emotions and sometimes accepting them as part of our new normal can help make them a little less overwhelming.
I ended up doing a living with less stress course that really helped me. I was doing a great job of imagining how difficult things would be after my wife died and it stopped me appreciating what we had in the here and now. There was a section on conscious breathing that I found really helpful both in generally relaxing but it was also good when life throws us another curveball.
I am sure your mum will be fine supporting your dad while you are on holiday and that she has people in place to support her too so I hope you manage to have a good holiday so that you are recharged, perhaps set some time aside to be "dad" time, some for your spouse and baby and some for you.
<<hugs>>
Steve
