Earlier this year, my lovely dad passed away from cancer. It was metatastic cancer from an unknown source, he was bedridden for a year and faded away in front of our eyes. They had a ‘no funeral’ funeral plan in place which I found a dreadful experience adding to what was a trauma.
6 months to the day of dad’s death we were waiting to hear what stage my mum’s cancer was. Mum has womb cancer which is stage 3 and I learned just yesterday - grade 3. She’s had the op. She is saying she doesn’t want the chemo and radiotherapy. We’ve been to a meeting. The Registrar who led the meeting had clearly read nothing about mam, let alone read the lab results we were hoping to learn more about to help inform mam’s ultimate decision. Despite asking questions, we were given conflicting, unpersonalised information and left more confused. It was only after studying research and learning about terminology myself that I found out more after ringing a specialist nurse to ask questions. It’s so important for mam to be able to make a well informed decision.
I worry constantly about the prospect of her suffering either way. I feel heartbroken, anxious and depressed about life. I feel overwhelmed and guilt for needing time off work. I am very close to my mam. My initial reaction when she said she wasn’t going to have treatment was thinking that I couldn’t cope with the thought of seeing her fade away like I had my dad. I feel guilt I suppose for not purely thinking about how she must feel and for a level of self preservation kicking in, trying to protect my own mental well-being when I felt powerless.
Welcome to our community, I hope you find it both informative and supportive.
Sorry to hear about both your parents, it sounds like you perhaps missed on the opportunity to express grief through a funeral and then to be hit with a diagnosis for your mum too.
Something I find quite helpful is looking at your feelings when someone has cancer, guilt is quite common. Looking at this and recognizing the emotions as normal, if anything can be said to be normal, can help make us feel a bit more in control.
Sorry about the doctor too, sometimes it seems because they work with cancer everyday they become immune to the impact it has on those to whom the world is new.
<<hugs>>
Steve
