Hi Isb572,

I just wanted to welcome you to Cancer Chat.

I'm sure some others will be along soon to chat. There are plenty of lovely people who use this forum who will be able to share their experiences of cervical cancer.

It's great that your sister has you for support.

Best wishes to you and your sister,

Renata

Cancer Chat Moderator

Hi there, I am also 34 and was diagnosed in May with cervical cancer. I think my stage is slighlty worse than your sisters as my tumor too big for surgery. I have had my 1st round of chemo and 2nd one on Tues. My family are the same, coping worse than I am. You can chat to me anytime. Keep your chin up and remember at this stage this disease is totally treatable and try to stay as positive as possible for your sis as this is what she needs. Believe me I know.

kim

xx

Hi,

Dunno about anybody else but as I browse discussions I mostly feel SOMEBODY should reach out to a person with a lot of viewers and not many replies.

My wife has a quite different cancer.  Not sure if my views are of interest. Somebody (sorry I'm not doing this methodically so can't remember who, three seconds after seeing the post) has a similar cancer to your sister's and knows it's treatable. That's good.

As I bang on boringly on other discussions we are all going to die, cancer just warns us that it may be sooner than we were imagining and that, if nothing else gets there first, the certainty of death has a definite identity.

You talk about the whole dilemma of being strong for somebody when you're devastated yourself. I don't lay claim to any big insights but you may want to wonder whether being devastated and being strong are mutually exclusive?

I'm devastated. I tell my wife I'm devastated. I try not to involve her in what I bring to this site but I think she'd maybe say that my being devastated is helpful to her. Obvious really. "You have a serious, probably temporarily debilitating, possibly fatal, disease that needs radical and unpleasant treatment? Ah well, chin up, make the most of it, I'm sure it'll be fine, certainly I can cope"...whatever. Not very supportive I'd say.

Of course my wife does a lot of "I'll be fine, don't worry, it's only cancer and treatments are...." I'm sure you've heard some of these reassurances.

The really honest position for me, and I guess you may have some empathy with this, is that I'm scared, angry, squeamish, helpless, sad, guilty about all of these feelings but determined to do my best to be supportive whilst having personal doubts about how supportive I can can cope with being.

When I put this to my wife, as calmly and gently as I can without backing off from the uncomfortable parts of it, it opens up her chance to say how scared, angry, sad, guilty she feels. It then helps her to find her determination again.

Being strong is not a question of not having negative feelings. It's a question of coping with them. Maybe your sister needs help to understand that, or share it. Perhaps you sharing your devastation as well as your determination to be strong for her could help her? Could help you?

It's only a thought.

Best wishes

Newbie.

Thank you for your replies. I haven't logged in for a few weeks and found newbies comments thought provoking so thank you for that. So far, we know now that she has womb and liver cancer and has had one operation that hasn't helped. She has a pre-op this week for lymph node removal and has been given the news that if the lymph nodes are clear then she has a 60% 5 year survival rate. We are coping with it the best way we can and I have to say it is easier now that she is able to be a little more open about it. On a happier note she has asked me to be her matron of honour so we are busying ourselves with wedding planning

They have been together 19 years... it's times like this priorities really do change.

Thank you Kim, I hope things are going well for you at the moment.

Hi evansmum 

I just wanted to ask how you are getting on? 
what symptoms you had?