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How to help a Caregiver


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I am wanting to get advice from those who understand. I am new the boards and am very fortunate that I have my mom to help out. At the beginning she was staying all the time but I started to send her home on the weekends for rest. She is doing for me and my 2 little ones (2 and 4 yrs).I know my DH can help me out when needed. Anyways I was trying to talk to her a little last night and I don't think she has excepted the fact that I have lung cancer. I have tried to get her to get on here for support but she won't. I have also tried to get her to call a long time fried that took care of her mother. I know this is hard on her because I am only 31 and her little baby. I could not imagine anything happening to my kids. I try to talk to her about things that could happen and she just does not want to hear it. I am very positive 90% of the time but I am realistic to and I do know what can happen. Anyways I just wanted to talk to someone about this and maybe someone could give me some advice. Thanks alot.

Heather_T

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HI Heather,

You sound very brave. Is there a social worker at your treatment center? She might be able to assist you and your Mom on this journey. My sister and I went to a group together, and found it really useful. I am also reading a book called The Anatomy of Hope by Jerome Groopman. I am finding it useful. You can find an excerpt from it online. I am sorry I don't have the link right now. It is about his experiences as an oncologist over many years, and how one deals with hope and reality.

Best of luck to you and your family in 2007!

Marco Jo

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Heather,

I was 34 when I was diagnosed and lived 30 miles from my mother - I also happened to live in the city that employed my father. My husband needed to go back to work because he needed a break (and I did, too). My mother was more than happy to come to my house four days a week - my father dropped her off in the morning and picked her up on his way home.

Mom would take my son to school and pick him up (I couldn't drive). She helped me with showers when I couldn't get my right hand above my head. We talked, she kept an eye on the clock and doled out pain medications, and we avoided the elephant in the room.

My mother assured me that she KNEW that I would be fine. I felt she was in denial. I was sure I was going to die in the first two years - not that the cancer would recur, but that I would just simply die. I let my mother live in her denial and I kept my dark thoughts to myself...and couldn't sleep at night because the monsters would crawl out of their cages in the deep recesses of my brain and taunt me.

I was healing during the winter months, a time of the blahs for me in any normal year, compounded with fear, pain and uncertainty...and then, it was spring!

My mother's "denial"? Well, I lived the two years. I DID get a will in order. I DID discuss plans for my son (I'm divorced and don't want his father to get him if something happens to me). I DID go back to work. My mother was right (well, she is so far, anyway:wink: ).

Let her think everything is all right - after all, YOU could be wrong. I can happily admit, I was.

She needs to do for you, she needs to feel that she is helping you to keep going. She NEEDS to play an active part, because she is your mother and she doesn't know what else to do. Mothers worry, and try to make it all better. Concentrate on surviving, and plan fun things with Mom for when you are over all the crap - like eating that cheeseburger!

Take care,

Becky

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Thanks for your support and thoughts. I really do feel that I am going to get through this with my familys support and gods help. The first 6 weeks of Dx I never had a second thought about death. Then I got online and started reading about LC and then you see death and like you said those monsters start coming out when you try to go to sleep and you think the worst. I want to live and grow old but I also believe in being realistic and knowing what could happen that all. I hate that anyone has to think or even go through any of this it SUCKS!!! I pray for everyone on this board.

Heather_T

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Finding the Light in Cancers Shadow By Lynn Eib is the book that helped me out the most. Do not listen to the negative. THink positive every day. There is so much research going on and More coming out that things are progressing. Has your mom gone to anytreatments with you? I think that seeing others may help motivate her and ease her fears. We felt a bit of relief after Deb had started her treatments. Prayers and good luck. Let us know what we can do for you and we will do it.

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I am a lung cancer survivor and also the mother of a 30 year old daughter.

My perspective on this is...if my daughter was in your position I would, like your Mom, be there to do whatever needed to be done whenever it needed to be done. In this regard your Mom is just acting the same as you will when your children are grown and need your help.

On the other hand if her coping with your cancer means that she can't/won't talk to you about it then maybe that's what you have to accept right now. Later she may be able to discuss this with you. If she's scared she may feel that telling you will make you think that she has no hope for you.

Sometimes that elephant in the room just has to be ignored until everyone is comfortable admitting it's there. I don't remember any real deep discussions with my daughter about my cancer until after the fact.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss, some of us can deal with all the facts others of us find it all too overwhelming. Right now your Mom's survival mode it to do, later she may be able to talk about it too.

Take care

Geri

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Heather:

I can say the same thing as the others, even though I was the caregiver (positive attitude, but wanted to know what could come, and know options for dealing with it) and mom was the patient who never did admit that anything was wrong with her and didn't want to know, or plan, for anything.

As others have said, it just worked best to ignore the elephant in the room between the two of us. Denial can be an effective coping strategy when you just plain need to go on, no matter what.

Please don't let what's online scare you about LC -- a lot of the data is old. As Randy said, research is going on -- there are options, and many folks do survive this. And, as Becky mentioned about some basics of getting one's affairs in order that she did......those tasks are the same ones everyone needs to do as a part of life: nothing special about those because of a particular dx.

Take care and keep us posted. We're here to help however we can,

Linda

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Heather,

I echo the above sentiments. I have grown children and, if it was one of my kids, I'd probably wig out completely. I think your Mom is doing what she needs to do to cope and sometimes elephants in the room are okay (even though they make horrible house pets.)

You have a very sound attitude about this disease though, and that is what is important right now. People work on their own emotional time-tables, so there isn't much you can do. Focus on you now.

Warm hugs,

Welthy

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Heather,

I am so sorry you are going through this. Nobody should deal with this horrible disease. I can tell you is so much easier when you have the disease that to watch someone you love go through it. The reason I know, I was 21 years old when I was diagnosed with fast growing lymphoma. Everybody around me feel apart, my parents, now my husband, my friends. I remember going to chemo by myself. I was trying to protect everybody around me and like you, never telling anybody my dark fears. Now I am 39 and I am steel here. Keep the faith. When my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, I felt apart. Because I knew from experience what chemo can do. I didn't want my mom to go through that. At the time she was diagnosed she already was stage V. Until the day she died I was in denial, and I probably steel in denial. I guess that is the way we cope. As a mother now the thought that my kids could ever go through drives me crazy. You never want to see your kids sick right, not even a fever. Maybe like someone said you and your mom can sit with a social worker. Maybe if she hears it from a third party, she will hear it. Heather take care of yourself. I hope they find the cure for this damn disease soon. And by the way you are really a strong woman.

My prayers are with you.

Martha

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