Hi all. 14 months ago my 58yr old husband was diagnosed with stage 4 metarazised prostate cancer. Mets to bones and lymph nodes. Hormone treatment and chemo last year have left him stable in terms of scans and psa. Although worsening pain to pelvis/hips where biggest of mets are. I am massively struggling with the mind talk of everything. What the future brings im 41 and we have 2 young children 8 and 5. Just everything really, add the diagnosis and sudden death of his youngest sister to pancreatic cancer in may this year. Everything just feels so surreal and when I tried to broach after months of bottling up my feelings my husbands response was I dont know why your feeling down your not the one dying of cancer. Any one else have any tips or ad ise on how to clear your mind of the irrational thoughts that pin ball around I dont wanna waste any time we have left and want to make happy positive memories as a family where we can
Welcome to our community, I hope you find it both informative and supportive.
My name is Steve and I am one of the community champions. My experience of cancer is via my wife who has Leiomyosarcoma, she had two types of chemotherpay and her cancer has been stable now for over 10 years. When Janice was diagnosed our son was about 8 and we have been lucky so far to get really good support from his schools.
Something that helped me was looking at your feelings when someone has cancer as being able to recognize those emotions as normal and valid helped me feel a little less overwhelmed. Later I did a living with less stress course with Maggies. The mindfulness bit helped me to live day to day rather than worrying about a future I could not control but could easily paint worse than actually happened. The conscious breathing exercies were good too both for helping me relax and get some sleep but also when life decides it is time to throw us a curveball.
You might also like to look at our pages on talking to children, it can be hard but we found that it was easier to be open.
<<hugs>>
Steve
