When someone you love has cancer
There is nothing as terrifying as hearing you have cancer – except perhaps hearing the news that someone you love has cancer.
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was a frightening experience; for my mother it was even more upsetting. She worried and prayed for me more than I did for myself.
When my treatment was finished, and I was getting back to some semblance of a normal life, our relationship was stronger than ever. We had come through the storm of cancer and we valued each other even more. What a cruel blow some years later then, when Mum was diagnosed with Stage IV brain cancer, a terminal and devastating diagnosis which took her life within a month of hearing the news. I felt so much more helpless when my mother was ill than I did at any point in my own illness.
When someone is diagnosed with cancer the focus is firmly on the person with the disease; but we should never lose sight of what the people who love and care for the person are also going through. Their anxiety, worries and fears for the future are just as real and just as frightening.
Image Source: www.healthline.com/health/breast-cancer/quotes
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My mother died of lung cancer, and that was far more devastating that my diagnosis of recurrence a few years earlier. Nothing can prepare you for it. My heart goes out to you, Marie. xox
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dear Marie,
my heart aches for you to know that you and your Mom had forged such an even closer bond, and then she was taken from you during the aftermath of her sudden diagnosis. you hardly even had time to give her the tender loving care you must have longed for.
I can so relate to what Cynthia Nixon says in that quote – that often it is harder for the caregiver than the patient. being a caregiver brings about such feelings of helplessness at times. and I think what’s most cruel is that unless we have been in our loved ones’ shoes, either being CG or patient, we can never truly understand the feelings of being in their position. I have thought so many times of how fortunate I was that Hugh was still with me when I was dx’d with BC. suddenly, we both “got it”, and I believe that he literally willed himself well just to be by my side at every phase of my treatment – and that I was able to do the same for him. not many people experience that situation.
much love and light to you, Marie,
Karen xoxo
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I’m not about to say which is harder. I’ve been on both sides of it, because I am the third generation in a row to get breast cancer. (The BRCA gene test was negative) I watched my grandmother die of breast cancer. My mother survived, no recurrence. And now I have it – mine is metastasized.
Each case, each generation, has been different, in severity, treatments available, prognosis, etc.
My children are young adults, but I know it will be very hard for them to lose me someday. It was so hard to watch how hard my cancer was on them. They have now gone through things most people do not face until middle aged.
But, what concerns me most of all, there is no way to tell if they carry this risk as well.
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Thank you all for your thoughtful comments which add so much depth to this post
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