My 80 year old mother has just been diagnosed at A&E yesterday. Pancreatic cancer that has probably spread (discharge notes say
Likely Pancreatic malignancy with Liver and Adrenal mets
i feel so sick and ill and frightened. In 2018 my dad died from prostate cancer and ever since then I’ve been slightly obsessed with someone else in my family dying of cancer. last year I decided I would retire early (in September of this year) and one main reason was to spend more time with my mum, who is probably my best (only) friend
this will sound like a selfish post where I’m thinking about myself and not my mum, but I am devastated. I can’t believe it, especially this cancer what looks like stage 4 (she has a meeting with a team on Tuesday) With my Dad we had 4.5 years, lots of time to go on holidays together, but this cancer is so so much worse. It’s like my worst nightmare has come true. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. She is the family glue, the person I hear all the family news through, she motivates me, she can lift my mood with a text or phone call, she’s everything.
And at the same time as these selfish thoughts about what I’m going to do without her, I feel unable to pull myself together to keep positive or strong for her.
Hi Mackey
Welcome to our community, I hope you find it both informative and supportive.
Sorry to hear about both your mum and your dad. Your reaction is really very normal so do not see the post as selfish at all. Someting I find quite helpful is looking at your emotions when someone has cancer as being able to recognize these emotions and accept them as part of a new normal I find helps to make them less overwhelming.
Since my wife has Leiomyosarcoma I am not so familiar with pancreatic, indeed more people will usually find me in our Family and friends forum but I did not want you to think your post had not got noticed.
Something I suffered from early in our journey was anticiaptory grief, then with help we have maanged to get to the point of living with cancer.
<<hugs>>
Steve
