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    polska's Avatar
    polska Posts: 33, Reputation: 6
    Junior Member
     
    #1

    Jul 24, 2012, 05:58 PM
    My mom has cancer
    My mom is dying of cancer. She has been fighting for six months and now her time is short.
    It hurts so bad to know that soon she will be gone.
    JudyKayTee's Avatar
    JudyKayTee Posts: 46,503, Reputation: 4600
    Uber Member
     
    #2

    Jul 24, 2012, 06:26 PM
    Quote Originally Posted by polska View Post
    My mom is dying of cancer. She has been fighting for six months and now her time is short.
    It hurts so bad to know that soon she will be gone.

    I don't know how old you are. A child, an adult, a family of your own?

    I was widowed. My husband was sick for over 5 years. I don't know how much time your Mom has. Has she been sick for a long time, for the 6 months, something else?

    I found that my husband got great comfort out of remembering - the time we did this, the time we that, little things that reminded him of better days. We talked and talked and talked.

    We didn't avoid talking about how sick he was, his prognosis, what I would do when he passed. "If" was never an option.

    We said all the things to each other that matter - I asked him to forgive me for any time I had ever hurt him, for anything I had ever done that made him unhappy. He asked me the same. I said I would always love him, I would always remember, I would die loving him - and he said the same. It sounds awful - but it wasn't. It was good for both of us. I think something like this would help both you and your mother.

    If your mother is unconscious - talk to her. I believe hearing is the last sense that leaves. She will hear you. Tell her how much you love her, how much you will miss her but that you will go on and make her proud, tell her what you will most remember... and why. Tell her that her Grandchildren will know her through you.

    Just make sure she knows you will be okay so she has peace.

    If you have religious beliefs, if she does, discuss them - talk about them. If you believe in life after death, talk about it.

    If you believe it will all be all right SHE will believe it will be all right and she will find peace.

    I'm so sorry.
    Fr_Chuck's Avatar
    Fr_Chuck Posts: 81,301, Reputation: 7692
    Expert
     
    #3

    Jul 24, 2012, 06:36 PM
    How is your mom taking it, has she come to terms? But we share the time we have, none of us know when our last breath will be,

    Anyone of us may be gone before she is, in a blink of a eye, life is that fragile. We need to each live every day like it is our last.

    Each word we say as if it is our last word we say or the last word someone hears.
    becksna's Avatar
    becksna Posts: 11, Reputation: 6
    New Member
     
    #4

    Jul 28, 2012, 07:20 AM
    Hey, I am so sorry to hear this. This is a hard road to go down. My father passed with liver ca in 2001. I have to agree with the others here. We spent our time talking about things in the past that were happy, successful and positive in our lives. We also put to rest some unanswered questions and made peace with other things. The only new thing I can add: I am a paramedic and see people pass away quickly and without warning. The pain on peoples faces when you have to tell them is obvious. The one thing that always stays with me is that some people say, "if only I knew, I could have done, I would have said." So, I take comfort that I did know that my dad was going to be gone one day soon and I did what I wanted to with him and said what I wanted to say. I hope this helps and I know its not easy to look at the situation this way right now, but please try. The things the others have said are all true and good answers as well. Peace to you.
    renelmiller0120's Avatar
    renelmiller0120 Posts: 13, Reputation: 1
    New Member
     
    #5

    Oct 30, 2012, 07:17 PM
    Hi; I lost my mother in January, four days after my 54 birthday. My mom also had lung cancer. She was diagnosed the previous fall (this time last year). She almost immediately made the decision not to fight it although the doctor recommended it. It wasn't two weeks later that she and I had hospice involved and had her hospital bed set up at home and all of her meds being delivered (a lot of pain meds and anxiety medication). About a month after becoming sick at home she wanted to go for a walk outside. It was a beautiful day so I said OK and we did walk about half a block and then began back to the house; she was complaining of her hip hurting. When we got back to the house and later that afternoon I was helping her to get back into bed when I heard her hip pop. She broke her hip; she had a hairline fracture from walking apparently and that is all it took to actually cause a great break. The ambulance took her to the hospital and it was days before they operated and replaced her hip joint. This was exciting because she was going to be able to walk with no pain; she was transferred to a nursing and rehab home for a month after that operation. She came home on my birthday and died four days later.
    When she was sick and dying she became angry quite a bit because to her it was taking too long. She was in pretty great pain which they tried to control with morphine. She hallucinated a lot on the morphine; that was very hard to deal with and they finally switched her to a patch that was very strong. It seemed to help a lot but it was so hard to go to the home every day and get her up, go through all of the routine rituals then she would want to get in her chair and be pushed around the hallways.
    When she finally died, I had just changed her briefs and was walking out of the bathroom after washing my hands. I looked over at her and her index finger was pointing toward the sky, her mouth was open and so were her eyes. It was as if she were trying to tell me something. I smiled because I had seen that look a lot. I miss her so much, we weren't best friends but she and I had become very close in the past four months. Maybe because I was wiping her butt all of the time; you tend to get more intimate from this kind of care. She would throw things in frustration. One day a whole glass of juice went flying in the nursing home. I was left just to sit there with her; my brother didn't show up until she had passed so he didn't help me one bit with her care. I was pretty angry with him.
    This has been the hardest thing that I have ever had to do because now I am questioning my time left here on earth. I have a hard time doing much of anything at all on some days. I dream about her all of the time. She is usually on the outside looking in to wherever I am. But lately we have been in the same places together. In the stores shopping, in the house talking. I never ever thought I would have this hard of a time when she passed because I was normally so angry with her for being so judgmental of me and what I did.
    I hope that you can come together with your mom and use this time to really talk about good times and what you are going to do when times get hard for you but she isn't there. My mom didn't want to talk to me about anything; she was pretty doped up but she was never one to let me in either. There were times when I think that she hated me. I still miss her; I still see her and have her pictures up around my home. I can't let it go although I pray about it almost every day. It was three months after she died that I was admitted to the same hospital she was in, and put on the same floor she was on, and across the nurses station I could see the room where I had spent many nights with her. I had to have emergency gall bladder surgery; but in the same hospital, same floor, almost same room? The same nurses were there too. It was almost too much for me.
    Remember, this is your time for you and her to get close if you are not already. Don't be afraid to say whatever you need to say to her and tell her you love her. Hold her hand if you can or give her feet a massage with lotion. Anything to help her feel loved and warmed from your comfort. You can tell her it's her time and she doesn't have to lie there and feel miserable; that she can go whenever she needs to and not to worry about you anymore.
    I wish you the best; I know how hard this is for you. I just want to know how much longer I have to feel this emptiness or so weird when I dream about her every night?
    Take care of yourself too. If you have others that are close to you and love you, spend lots of time with them because you have to have that buffer on the other side of you right now. I didn't have anyone there for me except my boys and they weren't real happy with that. When she passes you will feel a lot of different things and wonder what earth will be like with her gone; then with you gone? It's a very weird and strange feeling. But move through it and beyond; then get a real hug from someone. I still don't have anyone special to fill that hole.
    God be with you and your mom.

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