Hi Everyone, 

My Mum has stage 4 triple negative breast cancer and stopped treatment at the end of November last year as it had stopped working. I wish her oncologist never said she'd be lucky to see Christmas because here we are nearly in the middle of Feb and she's still here. The emotional rollercoaster is mentally exhausting and draining and I'm burnt out. All I do is cry and struggle to function in normal day to day life and no longer look forward to anything. I've become such a deeply sad person and in such a dark place. 

Mum is now under palliative care and with a hospice but living at home dosed up on all sorts until the pain is unmanageable and she'll then move into the hospice. I feel selfish for feeling like I just can't carry on any longer. I don't want my beautiful Mum to go but I can't bear this stress and exhaustion. One min I think this is it, she's going down hill then the next she's quite bright and doing things like going out and about etc. She's only 56 and I genuinely never thought I'd be losing my Mum in my early 30s. We're so close, we're best friends and do everything together. 

I live on my own and don't drive and work a demanding full time job. Work have been brilliant up until a couple of days ago when I asked for a day off unpaid for the sake of my mental health and the response shocked me and said it's a stage now where I'd need to go on sick if I'm burnt out when all I felt i needed was 1 day to balance work and home as a preventative measure for burnout. The problem is, I don't want to go on sick because I don't know how much longer this will go on for. We get paid full for 30 days sick but I already used half last year so that gives me about 15 days. Not knowing how much longer this will be prolonged is causing so much stress and heart ache. Financially I can't afford to end up on SSP so I'm trying so hard to just push through work but this rejection really knocked me. 

To add to my stress further, work have known this to be ongoing since the end of November and they gave me extra time off (about 3 days) over Christmas because we were told she might not make Christmas. But she's very much still here and I'm at a stage of now worrying that work think I'm taking the Michael. Yesterday my Mum and I popped out to M&S and I bumped into someone from work which has further added to my stress that they must think I'm making things up. I don't know, it's so hard to explain and I'm so stressed about things to do with work that I shouldn't be stressing about. I feel I could do with going on sick but again, what if this nightmare is prolonged much longer still because no one has a crystal ball? I'm just completely lost.