Hi All
I'm 48, an only child and at the beginning of June, my mum, who has never been unwell a day in her life, was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 lung cancer.
It took 4 GP's to finally send her for a chest x ray, despite severe pain in the ribs and losing 3 stone in weight very quickly.
On diagnosis, my mum refused to believe she only had 12-18 months and swore to fight with everything she had. But it already feels that the old mum is gone. She just sits and watches TV all day, no longer does any of her old hobbies and has no interest in anything. She is so cold and distant now. She used to message me numerous times a day and I hardly get anything now, getting one word answers when I message her. She is also clinically malnourished (despite mine and the dietitian's absolute best efforts) and has pressure sores etc due to her weight loss. The only time she leaves her flat is when I take her to the hospital as she doesn't want to go anywhere.
We completed 12 radiotherapy sessions in July and she is on daily immunotherapy. We are still awaiting scans to see if anything has changed.
Community nurses now visit 3 times a week for pressure care, bloods etc and I have 2 friends (both nurses) who help me with bathing mum, cleaning etc. However, all responsibility still lands on me. Constant phone calls form hospital, hospice etc as whenever Mum receives a call from them, she asks them to call me.
I am an only child, have no family close (apart from husband and teenage son) and feel so overwhelmed by it all.
I take mum to all hospital appointments (which have recently doubled due to her going blind in one eye, this is because of shingles, caused by the immunotherapy lowering her immune system), I work full time (I literally work across the road from mum's so can pop in and out as needed and take my work laptop to appointments) and have my own family too.
I don't even know what I'm typing for, just to let it all out I guess. I have great friends and am part of a running club which really helps (spend a lot of the running crying at the moment).
Mum has changed so much, so quickly. She is selfish, ungrateful, no appreciation (which I understand is her condition rather than her) but its so hard to cope with. My dad died when I was 12 so Mum and I have always been ridiculously close and I feel like I am grieving for her already. At this time of the year, she would already been thinking about Christmas but despite me mentioning it, she didn't make any reaction. Her and my son were so close but he says that all he wants is his old nan back :( He says he messages her and she doesn't reply. When he goes in after school, there's hardly any interaction and its so hard on hi,.
We have been offered counselling etc but she refuses. For the first 2 months, she refused any care or help as she said that I would do it despite the nurses and Oncologist telling her that I couldn't be expected to do it all, she just replied that I would do it.
I've even been unkind to her by saying that if she cant be bothered, we may as well stop it all now and let her die and I will then have to explain to my son that his nan didn't try :( I felt thoroughly ashamed afterwards but the Oncologist said sometimes sufferers need to hear the hard truth) but nothing makes any difference.
Does anyone else have a family member behaving like this? Any tips?
Thank you for reading.
Hi Reed1978
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.
The feeling of lonliness is something that is quite common when we care for someone with cancer, there is quite a good article on that here. Something I found when I opened up about cancer at my work was the number of people who were also struggling but had never found the strength to talk to anyone - while we know how many people are affected by cancer it is often not the easiest conversation to have.
As a carer you are entitled to a carers assessment from your local authority, this often goes alongside a needs assessment for the person with cancer and you can read about this on the NHS website - sometimes that helps people realise what is available and perhaps reasonable.
Do post on here whenever as someone is always listening and remember our helpline is there for you too, just ring 0808 808 0000 the line is open 8am to 8pm 7 days a week.
You might also like to take a look at Talking to children and teenagers. We were quite lucky that our son got a lot of support from his schools as my wife went through treatment.
<<hugs>>
Steve
