My Mum has incurable breast cancer - looking 4 support/advice

Hello everyone,

I have just joined this forum as I am looking for support and guidance from others who are going through a similar experience to me.

I'll start from the beginning. Cancer started to affect my family in December 2019, when my Dad was diagnosed with a benign cancer in his prostate. This was scary at first for me, but it is not life threatening and is incredibly unlikely to develop that way. So that was a relief.

However in early 2020 my Dad started to experience pain in his stomach and back. There was a bit of toing and froing with the doctors (the pandemic didn't help) and eventually the pain got really bad in November 2020 so I had to take him to A&E. They almost sent him home before seeing a doctor and he was not happy with what he felt in his abdomen. Long story short, he was diagnosed with cancer in his aorta which had spread from his testicle.

In May 2022 my Dad was finally given the all clear after 18 months or so of treatment. Which of course was a great relief.

But as well as that, my Mum turned 50 in 2021 so had her usual mammogram at that age. And they found she had cancer in August 2021. Two months later, it was discovered to be an incurable type (metastatic stage 4 I think)

So as you can imagine, it was brutal to have not just one parent have cancer, but both. And at the same time!!

The reason I'm here is because I thought I was dealing with it pretty well. But I'm not so sure anymore. When my Mum was initially diagnosed, I did grieve a bit. And I thought I had grieved enough and had come to accept that life wouldn't ever be the same again.

However whilst doing some self-therapy work alot of pain has surfaced, and I felt yesterday I was grieving again. And since yesterday I've just felt this pain in my chest and a state of depression. It feels like I've been bottling things up and trying to carry on with my life, but I am not really sure where I'm at, to be honest.

I'm just wondering are there multiple stages of grief? How do I learn to live with this pain and uncertainty? My mums condition could deteoriate at any time. Or she could live for another 10-15 years (I have seen other women on forums who have the same cancer and have lived for that long after)

Its absolutely horrible having this dark cloud over my life. I would say my relationship with my Mum is both close and distant at the same time. If I had to talk to either parent about something it'd definitely be my Mum who I'm more comfortable with.

I'm also trying to kick an addiction out of my life at the same time and trying to stay sober with such pain in my heart is very difficult. 

So yeah, this is my story with cancer. Thanks for reading. I tried to keep it structured and not a blubbering mess. I'd appreciate any insight on how to deal with grief or any other challenge in this scenario I just explained.

Cheers.