My mum (69), my absolute best friend in the world has been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Currently getting chemo and trying to get over a chest infection. I can see how tired it is making her. I’m hurting so much for her and myself. She’s such a beautiful kind soul, she’s always been so happy and full of joy but I can see her pain even though she tries to hide it. My daughter, her grandchild was born less than a year ago and we are trying for more kids. It’s so incredibly painful that the future we had all planned out won’t be as we hoped. My parents moved across country to be with us to help bringing up the grandchildren. This was a new chapter in all of our lives and for that short period before she was diagnosed it was wonderful. Life felt perfect. I can’t comprehend why this is happening, i find it all very unfair, I don’t want to accept it and I’m desperate for a miracle. I’m only 35 and the thought of living my life longer without her in it than with her brings me such pain. Living a day without her feels unbearable. We spend so much time together and she really is the love of my life, the one person who knows me inside out and loves me unconditionally. Although she lives in the next street she’s the first person I text when I wake and go to sleep. We walk to my work together and just enjoy so much of each others company. We are very similar. I don’t no how I will survive without her. I am married but that hasn’t come without challenges and my other half’s family live abroad and don’t speak the same language as me. I always feel alone when visiting or when they visit and I feel so sad that that will be my family time in the future as opposed to being with my mum. I feel I can’t give my marriage the love it requires right now as the only person I want to be with is my mum. I have good friends but have only told a select few as it’s too painful for it to be common knowledge. I’m hurting knowing that for many of my friends they will continue to have their parents in their lives for the next 20+ years. I thought I had that and knew if anything in my life didn’t work out i would be okay because I had her. My secure base x

My dad is still here, lives with my mum, he is lovely too but a quiet man who doesn’t to do much. I’m definitely a mummies girl so everything will be very different for us. He is a few years older and his health has had ups and downs, we always presumed he would be first. He doesn’t do much with his time and I worry about how lonely he will be. I will do everything I can to include him in our lives but I know it will be awful for him. He also doesn’t know anyone else in our city. I feel guilty about him being away from his home town, equally it’s about 4/5 hours drive away so we wouldn’t see him often if he moved home. We can’t back move due to work, there would be the same opportunities.

I am really struggling with the prognosis and the unknowns of timescales. It is so awful waking up daily to this nightmare. I have no idea what my future looks like anymore because she was such a big part of it. I’m signed off work currently as just can’t manage. I’ve lost almost a stone in weight. I had almost two full days where I felt okay and didn’t cry, but every other day for 2 months have been filled with such pain and sadness. I do worry how that will impact my marriage too.

How do people cope? Will it feel this painful and worse forever? I’ve never experienced such a daily emotional struggle.

I’ve been doing a lot of research into diets and repurposed medications to help fight cancer in a bid to try and help somehow. I just wish there was something I could do to keep her here with me. Any ideas?

if anyone has any stories of family members outliving prognosis, making great recoveries I’d love to hear them. Even just a sprinkle of hope is all I need today.