Hi Vickyd

I am feeling similar feeling to you.

My husand has stage 4 Bowel cancer and we have been told he may survive his current episode of problems or may come through this crisis and have 3 months.I just dont know how to survive this.My young adult children are suffering agony too. I feel desparate to help my husband and dont want him to suffer. i feel desparate that i cant do any thing to control events that seem surreal. I dont know where to turn to for help because i know no one can help us . Life feels like a living hell.

Hi,

I have a lot of empathy for everyone who has posted. My Mum was in her sixties when she was first diagnosed with cancer and fought it for a few years before she died not long after her 70th birthday. Now it seems to be my son's turn to be getting prepared for my own premature death. The one good thing is that I've been lucky enough to have had time to mentally prepare for this event.

Denial and anger are the first stages of the grieving process and these can either be constructive of destructive. A small amount of denial helps our minds by giving us time to get used to the new reality, but too much can lead to us ignoring the needs of the person who actually has cancer and believe me will be far more scared than they are letting on. Anger can be harnessed into a determination to do everything possible to enjoy what life we have and to have palliative treatment even if the chances of it being successful are pretty low. On the other hand, I've seen people whose anger has turned into bitterness and resentment turned either on themselves or their loved ones making the few days, weeks or months they do have to live a hell on earth for both them and the people who love them. 

Acceptance does come eventually, but we all grieve at different rates and some family members may still be in denial when the person with cancer and one or two others have reached acceptance. This happened in my Mum's case and both her and my Dad were exasperated by well meaning family members who kept saying things like "I'm sure you'll get better soon" or "will you be going away this year?" as if she just had a temporary set back like a broken leg which would be better in a few weeks! 

Best wishes 

Dave

 Thankyou Dave for sharing your experiences. You are spot on in that others keep telling mum that she should 'fight it' and 'doctors could be wrong' - with a brain tumour it is more certain. I havent the words for you and your son, apart from how fortunate he is to have a father who can speak about these things and support him. Sometimes I wonder if its harder, in some ways, for the survivors.

 Thankyou Dave for sharing your experiences. You are spot on in that others keep telling mum that she should 'fight it' and 'doctors could be wrong' - with a brain tumour it is more certain. I havent the words for you and your son, apart from how fortunate he is to have a father who can speak about these things and support him. Sometimes I wonder if its harder, in some ways, for the survivors.