Living with mum's terminal cancer

Hello chickpeabean,

Welcome to the community tho it's not somewhere any of us would come to willingly.

I suggest you repost this in the Breast cancer group so u can get support from ppl who are in a similar situation to your mum. I don't have breast cancer but can tell  u many other cancers have a wide variety of treatments available now n I would have thought the same was true of breast cancer too.In other words, don't assume the worst.

Perhaps u could add a bit more detail to your profile as well?

Hello chickpeabean. If you read my thread you'll see my son's girlfriend is in same situation as you. Maybe if you talked to each other you could help her open up about her feelings and she may help you

hi

sorry to hear about what you're having to deal with

19 is very young to have to deal with terminal illness in a parent. 

My daughter was 21 when I was diagnosed with primary breast cancer and I know she found it tough but it's important to keep some kind of dialogue going, I found this to be much easier with my daughter than my 3 sons and I do believe it helps. 

We don't talk about it all the time but we will have conversations about planning trips out and acknowledge the 'YOLO' aspect, I don't have a secondaries diagnosis but it is something I know she fears almost as much as I do, we just try not to dwell on it too much. 

There was a lady on the radio a few mornings ago with stage 4 breast cancer and she said it was important to her to stay focusing on what she wanted to achieve day to day because she wasn't going to sit around waiting to sprout wings. I think that's a good point. 

You say she's getting a lot worse which is obviously not good but is she still able to enjoy things like trips out, to a show or theatre or a restaurant ??  

You can't be happy and jolly and upbeat all the time but then neither can you wallow all the time either. 

The breast group might help as will others like supporting someone with terminal cancer or friends and relatives groups but you might find the local hospice has events and such like you can join in with and they have counsellors you can talk to. 

This needs to be discussed with your GP or with your mother and her GP, I know not everyone wants to acknowledge that it might be time to start thinking of hospice care but from everything I have heard they provide wonderful care and assistance 

Do you not find that in your pub job people bring their woes to you ????? Do you provide a sympathetic 'ear' ? 

Helping others unburden themselves can sometimes be therapeutic for us too. 

Carolyn

xxxxx

Hi can I also welcome you to the online community and I'd like to say how sorry we are that you've joined, but we can understand how you are feeling and at young age it is very difficult at times to deal with things, but we are very pleased that you felt able to reach out to us and tell us how you are feeling and I hope that whenever you feel things are getting on top of you and need an outlet to rant or rave, let off steam or just want a chat come on in we are always here for you.

I'm afraid that I can't add much to the very excellent replies you've had from the other members and have received some really good advice, my only addition to the other comments is to speak about you.

Looking after a sick parent who is in so much pain and you can't do anything to take it away can be very heartbreaking but you are doing quite a lot to help everyone by cooking and cleaning all of which can be very tiring and exhausting and I would ask you to remember to take some time out and have ME time to chill out.

I see that you have your bar job this evening this is a very good place to forget about home life for a few hours, enjoy the banter with your customers and be you you'll feel the better for it and be stronger when you have to start your home chores again

I have found this for you when your parent has cancer, it's from the USA but as cancer is the same the world over, the advice is the same.

I hope you find it of interest and please remember that no matter which of the groups you join you will be made very welcome and find all the members very friendly and extremely supportive of each other and you can come on here at anytime you need to chat or ask questions you will always receive answers but never judgement. Our door is always open for you whenever you need to come on in, even in the middle of the night there is normally someone about to have a chat with.

Please keep in touch, don't bottle up your emotions, let them out, remember a problem shared is a problem halved.

Look after yourself 

Ian

By clicking on the green text above will open up a new page for you

Hi

I am so sorry to hear about your mum. I’m living with incurable cancer and my daughters are 19 and 15. I find it so hard to see the impact my being unwell has on them. 

I can understand why you feel so down and in all honesty I don’t think you can expect to shake the heavy feeling. It’s a sign of your love for your mum. The scary thing would be if you didn’t feel like this. So maybe the thing to do is to recognise that the heavy feeling is just one of the things you feel and not to get overwhelmed by it. I am sure that alongside the difficult feelings you also still feel joy, fun, excitement...in short the full range of everything we all feel. The difficult bit is feeling them when there is something so big and horrible in your life - and not feeling guilty for laughing or having fun.

 I find meditation really helps me to understand this and to let go of the uncomfortable feelings. I use the headspace app. So do my daughters. It’s brilliant but I do need to use it daily for ten minutes to make a difference. 

As a mum, I tell my girls that I want them to live the most normal life they can in this abnormal situation. I’m so proud of the way they help out, whether it’s doing the cleaning and cooking, packing me a hospital bag when I have an emergency or being there for me. These are the things they can do. I wouldn’t expect them to help with something like pain as it’s beyond their control. 

You sound like a wonderful daughter and I think you should be proud of yourself for everything you are doing. No doubt tough times lie ahead. Don’t forget to reach out for help and to do it early. People like your GP and hospice nurses really can help and they’d much prefer to get in early and prevent an emergency than arrive late on the scene when things have gone tits up. 

And don’t forget to be 19! 

Love and hugs xxx

Hi Carolyn thank you for your message

I try to open the dialogue as much as I can about her and ask what her plans are and just asking questions, it's difficult to open up about myself as I used to to her because she just doesn't really want to hear it. Of course she cares, but as she has said in the past "I wish I had your problems" because of course I understand and appreciate her life has a lot more things that she has to worry about day to day, which makes it hard. 

Unfortunately, we can't go out as often as we'd like and we canceled plans to go to the lovely Cornwall that we all enjoy. We are planning to go to Burghley horse trials this Saturday and I hope she has as painless a day as she can.

I recently reconnected with an old friend when we whereat a festival with a few others and she wasn't having the best time at all. We had a lovely talk about ourselves and really had a great time together for the rest of the few days. She later messaged me a thank you for making her time great and it really warmed my heart. So I 100% agree providing a listening ear is a wonderful feeling.

Chickpea xxx

Thank you Ian,

One of the things I have discovered since my mum got cancer those years ago is that people want to listen. I used to be a very self conscious 14, 15, 16, even 17 year old and I let myself believe no one wanted me to talk to them about it. Being open about my emotions and talking about them in a normal conversation normalises them for me as well as for other people.

Doing this is one of the things that freed my mind up to mature and be able to deal with the dreadful situation we were handed as does everyone in that situation. The alternative is to give up and mums not ready to so why should I!

Thank you for this lovely message Ian, even this thread alone is nice to have a rant and get things off my chest to people who understand a variant of my situation.

Chickpea :)

Thank you Frankie I will check it out :)

Thank you for your message, I will check it out :)