Terminal diagnosis and depression

Hello everyone! It’s taken me a long time to come here, I’m looking really for connection and friendship and support as I’ve been struggling too long with depression and being isolated.

I was first diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2015, aged 45 but after a resection, ileostomy and reversal 6 months later, I was told the cancer had gone with no signs of it spreading. It changed my perspective on life and I’m grateful for that because I began to try to live life more fully!

However, in February 2020, I had an infection after a miscarriage sadly and through investigations, a mass was found in the soft tissues in my left pelvis, right in the greater sciatic notch, right where the sciatic nerve and veins and arteries run. After a PET scan in March, I was told that it was a recurrence of bowel cancer, obviously some cells had traveled by lymph or blood and settled but like my previous tumour, were slow growing. 
Within 6 months I was in agonies of pain and had large areas of my left foot, leg and buttock numb and after three weeks in bed because of the pain, my muscles rapidly atrophied, further causing issues. 
A week after I was diagnosed, I was told that the medical team wanted to start me on chemo but I hadn’t even processed the news and was not ready for treatment right then. I regret that now because it could have prevented such a rapid loss of mobility. After the time in bed I finally reached out for help as the pain was so great I could neither sleep or eat, it was indescribable! I was told I wasn’t well enough for chemo so I had a week of radiotherapy which helped slow things down but threw me right into the menopause!

I spent months in bed because of pain and depression, I still hadn’t processed everything, especially the radical and heartbreaking loss of mobility. Before the second diagnosis I practiced yoga and Pilates regularly and was very active and adventurous and to be so disabled (I can’t drive anymore either) was and still is so hard, I’ve always been so independent, it’s hard to ask for help!

Last year, February I think, I had another scan as I’d had an increase in pain and more numbness and loss of sensation and mobility and I was told that the tumour was inoperable as it was growing into my hip bone and nerves etc, there was no way that all of it could be removed and chemo would only be offered palliatively and if I was strong enough but I could have a further small amount of radiotherapy to try to slow things down. So far I’ve been lucky that it hasn’t yet spread elsewhere but I know I’m on a countdown.

I live in a small house in a village with my adult son who has become my carer after moving to my area for a new job just before my diagnosis so he gave up his job to look after me. My two other children now live with their dad as I quickly became unable to care for them but I see them regularly. I’m wanting to move home nearer to them and other family and friends but because I’ve become so depressed and anxious and have lost my mojo and positivity, I keep procrastinating and nothing is happening and most days I spend in despair, knowing my time is going by, not knowing how long I have and desperate for a better quality of life. I just go between the three rooms I can get around (stairs are very tricky with crutches and weak limbs) and watch Netflix. On a good day I will try to draw or write or do something else but I can’t get out easily where I live.

I am speaking with family this weekend to try to expedite things or more precisely, ask for help with the things that I can’t do or am finding hard to face on my own (like debts, money management, being proactive and not paralysed by apathy and most importantly, taking better care of myself!) I’ve come here because I feel alone in my situation and lonely and it’s so hard to explain to someone who can’t know how I feel what it’s like being terminally ill and everything that affects. I’ve survived two years since diagnosis so far and most of that time I’ve been bed ridden or stuck at home and my love for my children is really the only thing keeping me going. I want to live better in the time I have left.

Thankyou to anyone who reads all of this, I’m tired now! I thought I’d just tell the whole story and see if anyone out there knows my struggle and we can connect. I’ve always been someone who has hope, I know it’s still there but buried, I’d just love to feel uplifted again and have a purpose, a desire to do the things I can that make me happy.

love to all of you