Our son has cancer!!!!!!

I have been married to my husband for 30 years this year, we have 3 wonderful boys aged 28, 25 and 15 our youngest son was diagnosed with medolaory thyroid cancer and secondary mastistis cancer in his lungs, in November 2015 aged 13 years old, he had a trachyostomy at that time which saved his life, a feeding peg although he can now eat and drink as normal now and port so they can easily take bloods.  It has all been such a traumatic time for us all, although we have to the outside world coped really well, only our closest friends have seen our true misery throughout all this.  We have got him back to school over the last year sometimes it's been a struggle as I have had to go in with him for the suction side of things, which meant I have had to give up work, his school both staff and all pupils have been amazing  they have now found someone who is going to be his one to one and she has been trained to care for our son, quite how he and I will cope with this I'm not sure although everyone is advising this is for the best, like a lot of these changes which have come along I surpose I must try to stay positive I should think of it as starting another chapter however I'm really not looking forward to it, I'll keep you posted on how it all goes.  I didn't know this forum existed and I hope that what I've written about our circumstances sparks some one to make a reply of comment it would be nice to occasionally talk to someone in the same kind of boat, as they say sometimes Cancer is a Lonley Place 

  • Hi Bridget you have all as a family been through a lot. I have just found out my husband has throat cancer and I am so scared, I keep trying to stay positive but I am wondering has it spread and what stage it is at. On top of that my mom might have lung cancer. I am lucky to have stumbled across this site early we are still waiting to see the consultant. I have to be brave but I do not feel it Spidwid x

  • Hi Bridgette and welcome to the forum.

    it sounds like you and your family have been through a lot, I can only imagine what it is like having a child who has cancer.

    I do know from experience what it is like to hand over a child who you and your partner have had to care for 24/7 and entrust his care to professional carers - even if it is only for a few hours. All you can do is tell yourself that you, he and the rest of your family will benefit from this change. After months and years of personally providing for his needs you all need a break.

    The chances are that you will have separation anxiety but he will take it in his stride. You will also probably feel terribly guilty, even though the logical part of you knows that this is for his benefit as much as anyone's. 

    I hope it goes well and isn't too stressful for any of you.

    Best wishes

    Dave

  • Thanks for your advise, it's so far going ok ...
  • Thanks for replying , I'm sorry to hear about your husband, and mother, it will be very hard to stay positive at this early stage, however take each day as it comes, no one will judge you if you have quite a few wobbles at the minuite, we have found rather than dwell on the things we can no longer do as a family we have made a new normal, over the last year we have made lots of changes.  I try wherever possible to keep control over the appointments, obviously as a child out son has lots of outside agency's involved with his care, very quickly we had 'Julie from ..... ' or Cath from..... At this time or this day it became overwhelming, a diary became extremely useful, we called a meeting round the table as you would say and got everyone involved and soon found we didn't need everyone as lots of people over lapped each other.  That done although hospital visits, home visits, operations all must be done don't let them define your life, find time In between to do something nice, on appointment days at Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham because we travel from Lincoln we like to have lunch out either before or after. anyway stay in touch and I'm sure you'll do better than you ever thought you could take care x