Hi James

You should not feel guilty about going out and having a good time. You need that time to escape and lift your spirits and recharge yourself. You will be a whole lot better in yourself and this will be good for your mum as she will see you are happy. You need to be firm with other stay away members of your family to do their share of the care you so readily give your mum. You are doing really well and should feel good about yourself. Best wishes Kim
 

Hi James

You are being an amazing supportive son and friend to your Mum during such a difficult time.  Like Kim has so rightly said do make time to enjoy yourself too.  I am sure your Mum would not want you to feel guilty(when my husband was 'incurable' I did carry on socialising when I could as, apart from anything else, it gave me a break and that helped me cope better when things were hard.  He also preferred to hear about what was going on around him rather than talking about the cancer).  Come and chat on the forum when you need to - we all need support at some point.  Jules54

What an amazing son you are!   Be proud of what you are doing and what you have done.   Go out and enjoy your nights out, you need those.  I suspect your mother would really want you to have these fun times.   I hope the words of others helps you during this difficult and emotional time.  You are not alone.

Hi James,

I fully agree with the replies you have have and I feel sure your mother is justifieably very proud of you. With regard to your other family members, I would just like to point out it may be they dont know what to say or how to react. Please understand, I am not making excuses for them  but one thing I have learnt in my three years on here, cancer doesnt just affect the patient, it affects the whole family and friends as well. But you should not feel guilty when you do go out for you need to keep some sort of normality in your life. Otherwise the stress will build up to a point where it could affect you.

It is always painful when someone we love is suffering from this evil disease and it also make us feel inadequate and that we should be doing more. For when we were young, it was our mothers looking after us that made us better and now it's our turn, we feel bad for medically speaking there is little we can do apart from being there for them and supporting them.

Please come on here as often as you need; it's a great community to belong to for people understand how we feel. Please keep in touch, regards Brian.

James,

Live your life, have fun, be young - and then tell your Mum all about it (or at least the edited highlights) while you care for her.

This may seem like bizarre advice, but it is what I would like my own son to do and I'm sure most parents would feel the same. None of us want to feel like we're being a burden, we want our children to be happy and news from the outside world is always a useful distraction.

Good luck!
Dave