Hi Everyone,

I'm Matt, posting here because I don't really know where else to go. My Mum got rushed to hospital last week with breathing difficulties which we suspected was due to Covid or a bad chest infection. However she's be diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in the lung, bone and lymph nodes, the breathlessness due to a pleural effusion. While she has had primary breast cancer before (a few years ago) she responded to treatment well and we didn't think too much of it until she went to hospital.

I'm devastated, as are my younger brother and sister. I'm 31 and they are both only in their mid-20's. While we are still waiting for the oncology MDT and an official prognosis I'm not kidding myself that the results look bleak, a malignant pleural effusion usually means a matter of months... I'm trying to keep it together for the others while coming to terms with everything myself and I've told my siblings to just wait and see, the first step is getting mum back from hospital and home. I know we all just want her back here where she can be comfortable and have us around, right now none of us are even allowed to visit her, it must be so horrible dealing with all this news while alone.

My mum and dad had a messy divorce when I was a child and she never found anyone else. The family is us 4 and the dog. I don't really know who to turn to, I have friends that have lost parents when they we're young but it feels like I'm placing a burden on them, I don't even know what to say. There is then the anxiety of having to deal with everything here, a house in a town none of us live in anymore. Responsibility for the dog. Even just financial arrangements. Also while thinking of this I'm hating myself for treating it like she's already gone, I just don't know the best steps forward.

I guess the advice to myself would be what I'm trying to give my siblings.. We still don't know all the details, let's just wait and look forward to her getting home and then we'll take it a day at a time. The main thing is to spend as much quality time with her with the time that is left.

Anyway, sorry for the complete brian dump, this is the first time I've really had a place to write things down. I know I'm not alone out there and would just love to hear from people going through similar to help us through this all.