Family member diagnosed - kidney cancer spread to brain

Perhaps you are jumping the gun a bit.  First of all, you need to be careful researching something vague like "kidney cancer spread to the brain".  This is because statistics will always be 5+ years behind the current treatment trends.  New approaches to treating cancer have to do through rigorous trials, at least 2-5 years in duration and only then can a drug company ask for a licence.  People with advanced cancer (spread to another organ) are happily living life today on treatments that weren't around when they were originally diagnosed.  

Secondly you appear to have already condemned your family member to a short prognosis already. :-( You're already talking about events she is going to miss.   I would suggest on the little info you have, it's not helpful to assume anything, or jump to conclusions, else everyone may be anxious unnecessarily, and say the wrong things, potentially causing upset.  

Another common discussion thread on here is whether, if and when to tell friends and relatives and the (mostly inappropriate) responses people give.  If you don't know whether your family member has said it's ok to spread her health details amongst the family, then it would perhaps be unwise to raise the subject with her direct?   If everyone in the family did that she may quickly feel overwhelmed, and perhaps burdened by everyone else's anxiety.  

A cancer diagnosis comes as a huge shock.  The diagnosed person (and partner) needs time and space to come to terms with it themselves.  Frequently at the start there's no info because more investigations need to happen before a treatment plan can be discussed with the person.  There's lots of new treatments these days.  Prognosis is never finite, just a best guess and there are people on here who are way past their initial time span.  

There's a group on here for families of people diagnosed with cancer.  You might want to take a look in there too?   community.macmillan.org.uk/.../family-and-friends-forum

Sorry but there's no easy or right or wrong answers or one approach fits all.  

For context, I have advanced cancer too.  Mine has spread to my lungs and is currently under control from immunotherapy.  I'm very realistic about it.  

I totally understand and agree with everything you've said, and I really appreciate your response. 

I'm so new to this and have never been old enough to see any of my family going through cancer. My great aunt died of cancer but I was single digits, my grandad had cancer but I was told after he'd already been in the all clear (he had an isolated area of skin cancer on his face). I'm 22 now and expecting a baby very soon so my stress levels have been through the roof and when writing my original message I'd just had a massive breakdown about the whole situation. 

Your comment about treatments is definitely something that sounds positive and I hope that it's the same in this case. I really hope she responds well to whatever amazing option they're able to offer her. I'm still waiting to hear more. I'm now aware that she is in hospital, but I haven't heard any more. 

I absolutely wouldn't say any of those thoughts about her missing out on things to anyone, I guess it was just me getting them written and shared somewhere. It's absolutely not helpful to anyone and it's wrong of me to think so negatively when she needs 100% full support (what I intend to offer in any way she is comfortable with). 

Yes, I haven't raised it directly with her (nor her immediate family - partner for example) but my family communicates in funny ways. We hear all the family news through my grandad who gets it from his sister (who lives in England, it's only my grandparents, mum, uncle and I who are in Scotland and the rest of the family are down south), who passes it onto my mum and then she passes it on to me. It's frustrating but it's how they've always been. That's why it's so difficult to knowww whether or not she wanted us to know or not. As I do not know, I won't be raising it directly until I'm more aware. I do imagine that she knows we're aware. Again I won't reach out as of yet. I appreciate that it may be overwhelming if she was to be inundated with messages etc. 

I really appreciate your in depth response, it's given me a lot of insight and a lot to think about until we know more information. As you say it's early days so we won't know more until more tests etc are done. 

I am incredibly sorry to hear about your diagnosis and I thank you for sharing your knowledge on here with people like me :) 

All the best to you 

Hello, I just wanted to say welcome to the group.

It must have been a shock finding out about your family member and it is a bit of a minefield knowing what and what not to say! I don’t have any first hand experience to pass on like MMum does. My cancer currently doesn’t seem to have spread.

All I would say is that when you speak to your family member, it’s good to ask them if there is anything they need from you rather than trying to guess what this may be……having said that it sounds as though you have a lot going on with your pregnancy etc.

Should you have any queries then do post them and do consider joining the families group that MMum has provided the link to.

Big hug Jukes x