Hi Alfie

I'm so sorry to hear about your Mum.  My Dad was diagnosed with primary liver cancer a number of years ago.  I was taken aback at how fast his deterioration was even though he was a bit younger at 69.  From a practical perspective it made it really hard to manage support for him.  For example, just as we managed to get some arrangements in place with support services to check on him, he was bed bound and needed a higher level of support.  Tests and treatment got cancelled as he was too ill to go through it.  He died within less than 2 months of diagnosis - such a shock as we never had a chance to come to terms with him being ill.

A few years later, I can see some positives to the nature of his illness.  I ended up looking after Dad with my siblings and he died at his home.  I had very young kids at the time - the stress was incredible- but we could not have continued with the support and care he needed from us over an extended period.  But we had time with him to talk about the past, share our love for him and say the things we wanted to say. In some ways that short period of time was very precious.

The care from the NHS was excellent throughout.

I hope you manage to get some precious time with your mum too.  It’s hard to say goodbye but I got a lot of comfort out of it later.