Backstory: My mother recently received her third diagnosis and started chemo today. First two were frightening - first one was breast, 10 years ago, which was treated with hormone therapy and a mastectomy. As a result of side effects to her treatment for that, she later developed cancer in her lower abdomen around seven years later, requiring surgery and radiotherapy.
Her first concern on getting that treatment was that it may cause further cancer as the previous medication had. She was told not to even consider it as the chances of getting it from that treatment were negligible- around 5% - and not to worry about it. 2 years later, around 3 months ago, and she developed a cough which wouldn't go away with antibiotics and we all knew there was something up. You guessed it, she has cancer in her lungs and also some disease in her peritoneum. The 5% chance happened. We still can't believe it.
But the thing that's different this time is that she requires chemo as her primary treatment. The first two times, her greatest anxiety was having to have chemo and when we found out she didn't need it we all experienced a huge sense of relief. We've always dreaded it. Fast forward to now and she needs it and there's no alternative and her first session was today. And I'm really struggling to see how I'm going to support her. I've been running her to appointments and to do errands since the diagnosis as I've taken time off work for stress (I'm in the process of leaving my job as a teacher as I can't deal with teaching workload stress and care for my Mum concurrently, and I don't know many people who could), so I've been spending a lot of time with her (we don't live together but I do live nearby). I've taken her to meet her consultant and senior nurse who described all the potential side effects, I've taken her to try on wigs. And I've felt relatively strong for her and that we can get through it together.
But today, her first round of chemo, and I just lost it. I was meeting her at the hospital with my sister as we had agreed to split the time sitting with her so we could each have a break. She went in at 8:30, I agreed to get there at 10:30. I literally didn't sleep a wink last night with increasing worry, and stupidly I thought that reading about the process of chemo would help, and it's done the opposite: the idea of seeing my wonderful mother who raised me and two sisters on her own and has already survived this bloody disease twice, systematically poisoned over several months, is making me feel physically ill.
As soon as I sat next to her on the ward I instantly felt faint and nauseous, to the point where I scared the hell out of her and had to go to the toilet to get some air, straight after sitting down. I feel awful for doing that to her: that she has all this anxiety and dread and she had to worry about me in her first few hours of chemo. I don't know if I'll be able to forgive myself for that. I did eventually calm down a bit and sat with her, then drove us home and made our tea. I'm staying with her as my sister, who lives with her, can't give up her job and she can't be on her own as the risk of complications is high, mostly owing to her diabetes. So I went to bed to call my partner and relay the events of the day, expecting to fall asleep exhausted as I'm going on 48 hours of being awake now and I just feel physically ill again, I feel sick and am getting chest and stomach pains (all symptoms I have experienced with stress in the past).
I have a history of anxiety and depression and I'm so worried it's going to come back and I'm not going to be strong enough to get her through this. And as I say in the title - it's not even me that's ill. I don't feel like I can do this.
Anyway thanks for reading and congratulations if you managed to get to the end of what has turned into a rambling mini-novel. One I can't see having a happy ending.
