I / we are struggling to come to terms with my wife's diagnosis(yesterday). I admire my wife who seems to be coping slightly better than myself.
My best friend, wife, and mother to our beautiful daughter.
I am just trying to figure out how and what, I can be the best support I can be for her.
Also we are worried about having the difficult conversation with our daughter(11yrs). How it will effect her.
Having a roller coaster of emotions.
just getting quite overwhelmed with information, and struggling to pin-point at prioritise which is most important.
Any help or advice would be most welcome.
I appreciate that looking around these forums, that my wife may have been lucky not to have anything worse diagnosed, but any form is horrific and I admire all who are going through this journey and those who have come out the other side.
x
Hi Scuttboy
I am sorry your wife has been diagnosed with breast cancer. I think this first stage of not really knowing what you are facing is the hardest part. Once she has a treatment plan and you all know what’s involved, it becomes something to work through. I think the most useful thing you can do for your wife is to listen to her when she wants to talk. Don’t try to ‘fix’ things, but provide practical help as required. If she wants you there for appointments then go, but don’t push if she would prefer to go alone. One of the biggest battles I had with my husband was over prognosis. My cancer is metastatic and he wanted to know how long I might have whereas I didn’t want to live with some sort of “use by” date over my head. I doubt you are in that situation but I use it as an example of letting her lead on how much she wants to know versus what she would prefer not to be explicitly told.
On talking to your daughter, I hope this link is of some help. www.macmillan.org.uk/.../talking-to-children-and-teenagers
Macmillan Support Line - 0808 808 00 00, 7 days a week between 8am-8pm
I am a Macmillan volunteer.
I have metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer, in remission
