Hi all,
I’m a new member of this group and looking to speak to someone going through the same/ similar situation to me.
In January 2023 my Mum was diagnosed with incurable Cholangiocarcinoma (Bile Duct Cancer). Since then she has gone through Chemo and Immunotherapy which has kept the cancer from spreading, until recently.
since October she has only been receiving immunotherapy but at her last scan we found out that the treatment is no longer working and the cancer has spread locally, she is now back on chemo with the hopes that it works as it did last time.
i feel over the last year and a half I have managed to deal with the situation fairly well but since finding out that the recently news I am struggling to come to terms with it all again.
I feel scared of what we will be facing and also think I am suffering with anticipatory grief but it would be selfish of me to open up too much to my mum or rest of my family as I don’t want to bring them down.
Thanks for reading
Hi Simba_x
Welcome to our community, a special family linked by our relationship to cancer. My wife's cancer is very different to your mum's but other that than perhaps has many similarities too.
I thought I was coping fairly well until my wife had a number of issues with her first type of chemotherapy and I finally reached out for help, in my case walking in to my local Maggie's.
I ended up doing a living with less stress course that really helped me, especially the section on appreciating what we have rather than worrying about a future I could not control. We do have quite a good blog on coping with anticipatory greif
When we look at your emotions when someone has cancer I can see how many boxes I ticked. One tool that can help is to recognize the emotion, accept it as valid but then recognize that the emotion is not in control.
<<hugs>>
Steve
