Trying to come to terms with this C word

Hello, 

This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this before, and I won’t lie I’m very nervous about sharing my story.

A little over a year ago, my mum was diagnosed with Colorectal cancer. The day she told me was like any other when I went to visit, my partner and I went up to my parents and then it just came from my mums mouth “I’ve been to the doctors and they think I’ve got bowel cancer” hearing that, as I’m sure many of you know cannot be described. It’s shattering, you only focus on the C word and the negative connotations. I just went silent, went outside and sat on the fence looking over the fields. I felt sick, like it wasn’t real. My Dad came to me after what I think was about 5 minutes to comfort me. Him and I have always been close, and my first thought was “Holy S***, how is my dad going to cope” as I’m an only child and we have a limited support bubble (or at least what I thought at the time). I felt guilty that my first thought wasn’t my mum, but my dad. I tried to focus on the “Think” rather than “I’ve got” cancer. My partner did too. She’s a very practical black and white person, almost to honest. At the time she basically said “we know what we know, try not to over think don’t tell work we don’t know what any of this is” she was even angry at my parents for telling me in the first place. I won’t lie this really hurt me. But we pushed on and on a whole we battled through but it always stuck in my mind and made me feel as if I couldn’t speak to her, I need to stay strong for Dad and also I don’t have anyone I know who’s been through this kind of thing. 

Fast forward a few months, we find out there has been a mutation. And whatever was in her bowels spread to her lungs. I thank my lucky stars that her company provides her with private health insurance and everything that goes with that, and thankfully- a treatment plan was put in place. After the NHS said that’s it theres nothing we can do. Which was a hard horrific day. But the operations were planned and successful and were now waiting for a date to remove the primary.

My whole mindset throughout all of this was keep on a brave face, be there to support your Dad. Because he’s at the coal face. But where does that leave me? I feel as if I can’t talk to my partner and when I do kind of vent or try to let off steam it’s not in a very positive way and that’s putting strain on us.

So what I’m getting at in the end, is simply how do you cope? Do you ever truly get used to it? How do you try to not let it ruin your other relationships.  

I know this is very long winded, but thank you so much for reading. It helped me out typing this :)