Sorry to hear about your mom. I hope you will find help as well as comfort on this board.
Trust me you do not sound corney when you talk about your relationship with your mom. I think there is no bond that comes close to the mother daughter bond, especially once we become adults and see what they have endured for us. We learn to appreciate them and that only strengthens that bond. I have learned not to feel sorry that yes the cancer will kill my mom and take her from me but rather to feel happy that I had the mother I did. I have several friends that have no realtionship with their mothers for various reasons and to me that is much more tragic. I have at least had the love of a great mother and will always have that in my heart and in my memories unlike them.
I remember the out of control feeling when my mom was first diagnosed with NSCLC Stage IV and the doctor told us maybe 6 months without treatment maybe a year with treatment and because of my mom's age at the time 80 yrs old. He seemed to believe she would be better off with no treatment. My mom had no other health issues and was a young 80yr old.She opted for treatment and chemo was her only choice as radiation was not offered to her. I remember the constant state of fear I lived in and crying, not sleeping, not being able to eat, spending every minute of ever day consumed by the cancer. I survived that stage and am stronger for it. Your life will never be back to normal as you knew it but you manage to forge ahead and create a new normal. My mom is currently a 2 year survivor so I have had plenty of time to deal with this.
My mom's first chemo was the worst but that may be because somewhere during that time she developed a pneumonia and urinary tract infection so when she was done with the chemo and should have been feeling better she felt worse. My mom has been lucky as she tolerates the treatments well with few side effects her number one complaint is fatigue. The first chemo was the worst as she did not feel like eating as it effected her taste buds and it caused painful neuropathy in her limbs and she got quite weak and required a wheel chair but I think alot of that was also due to how run down the cancer had gotten her before it was found. Since then her treatments with tarceva and the other chemo drugs have been not too bad and she lives a normal life and yes has not even needed a wheelchair or felt short of breath since the Tarceva as she was lucky in that she responded well to Tarceva and it did away with the actual tumor in her lungs and since then her problem is mets in the liver which have yet to cause any symptoms as the chemo has kept them controlled for now.
My advice to you is try to calm down and learn which type of cancer she has and learn as much as you can about it and the treatment and be your mom's advocate go with her to doctors appointments and chemo, be there for her and appreciate each day with her. Do not accept the doctors time frames as they are frequently way off as everyone is different and responds to treatments or even to the cancer in different ways. The doctors are just quoting stastics and our loved ones are not stastics they are individuals.
When you look at the reality of it, yes she has lung cancer and yes the survival rates are not good but she is still on the same playing field as you and I are.None of us knows when we will die.We could get hit by a car, die of a sudden stroke or thousands of other things including something like sepsis from an everday cut but we do not walk around thinking about it. I know for a fact that I or one of my siblings could die before my mom.We do not know when she will die just as we do not know when any of us will . Death is a part of life and accepting that has helped me cope alot.
If my mom dies first yes I will miss her more then words can say and yes it will be a HUGE void in my life but I also feel we are spiritual beings having a human experience , Having said that I know death will not be the end of her life.
Use this board to vent your fears and anger as well as pick the brains of those of us who have been coping longer as this is a great group of people and it really does help to just be heard. You will find quite a few of us with mothers with the disease here. I will add you and your mom to my sadly ever growing prayer list. JanMarie
