Daughter in law just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I love her like she was my own daughter.
I just can't stop crying. I just don't know how the family are going to cope when she's gone. They have 2 of a family in their early 20s. My heart is breaking for them as they are too young to lose their mum. I just feel like screaming. I feel stressed as well as nobody can give any information about how long she will live. Will it be weeks or months ?
This diagnosis has been like a bolt from the blue.
Hi Misses46cd3e
Welcome to our community, I hope you find it both informative and supportive.
I am Steve, one of the community champions and my experience of cancer is via my wife who has Leiomyosarcoma.
Janice's cancer was incurable at the time of diagnosis but one thing she really did not want to know was how long - and I really struggled with that. Still that was over 10 years ago and in that time I came to realise that a prognosis is at best an educated guess and nobody would have guessed she would still be here now let alone in health; as she put it living with cancer rather than anything else.
Something I found quite helpful is looking at your emotions when someone has cancer as being able to recognize these emotions and accept them as normal and valid makes them feel less overwhelming.
I did a living with less stress course with Maggies that really helped me. The bit about living in the here and now rather than spending lots of time worrying about the future was really good. Perhaps well summed up by the quote “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace.” The conscious breathing exercises are great too when life decides it is time to throw us another curveball.
<<hugs>>
Steve
