Hi there, I am an only child too and totally understand how the weight feels so my heart goes out to you.  My mum's cancer returned as Stage 4 in November 2021 and after a fairly stable couple of years of palliative chemo it now is affecting the kidneys and she has been told it's likely weeks and months.  It just feels like the rug has been pulled so many times.  But the hard part in any of this for me has been that my mum has never spoken of the time or that the doctors have said weeks or months.  I can't get a sense of how or if she has accepted it on any level.  Or is she trying to protect me and others?  I just can't get the courage to ask those questions.  My Dad won't discuss either even though I had to tell him the prognosis.  So it feels like a parallel universe where I am trying to deal with this and those around me are just carrying on like nothing is wrong. I'm not so young, 45.  Cancer just has taken so much of living the past few years, just this hanging over us.  

Hi there, I am an only child too and totally understand how the weight feels so my heart goes out to you.  My mum's cancer returned as Stage 4 in November 2021 and after a fairly stable couple of years of palliative chemo it now is affecting the kidneys and she has been told it's likely weeks and months.  It just feels like the rug has been pulled so many times.  But the hard part in any of this for me has been that my mum has never spoken of the time or that the doctors have said weeks or months.  I can't get a sense of how or if she has accepted it on any level.  Or is she trying to protect me and others?  I just can't get the courage to ask those questions.  My Dad won't discuss either even though I had to tell him the prognosis.  So it feels like a parallel universe where I am trying to deal with this and those around me are just carrying on like nothing is wrong. I'm not so young, 45.  Cancer just has taken so much of living the past few years, just this hanging over us.