My mum has got uncurable cancer

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She will have to have chemo treatment for the rest of her life, starting next week. It has spread from her bowel to various other places.

Feeling worried and upset is an understatement. The McMillen team is going to give me, my mum and the rest of the family support.

But I'm still emotional. And the stress of it all is affecting my short-term memory and my train of thought. I really hope the treatment allows her to live for another decade or more. She's too young to be taken from us, and I know I'm mid-20's but I still feel like I'm not ready to lose her yet. Mid-50's maybe, because that's the average age people lose their parents, but not before 30's.

I just cannot believe this is happening to us. I hate cancer.

Sweet Pea hugs

I'm sorry this happened to your mum, and to you.

I hate cancer, too.

Your mother needs you now. She needs your strength.

What a terrible shock you and your mother have to face. Facing it in the knowledge of your love will greatly comfort her, and I hope there is someone else in your life who loves and can comfort you in gentle and understanding ways. You will be making this journey alongside your mother, and there is no map for this. Most people receiving this news tend to struggle at first in a bewildering mess of confusion and pain.

My experience of the support offered by The Cancer Society here - which they offer freely to everyone affected by cancer, either the person who has it or their loved ones - was really wonderful. I hope there are similar organisations with excellent support services that will be able to offer that for you and your mother as time and events proceed.

For now, things must feel like a terrible mess of shock and grief and anger and everything.. and standard as that is, par for the course, it is still intensely overwhelming and painful, especially when experienced for the first time.

Please keep us updated.

Very sorry to see this, Joe! I hope you and your family can support each other through this terrible experience.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I hope it helps that you have the support of people on this site.

Are you able to spend some time with your mother just doing something relaxing?

I'm sorry to hear this, cancer is such an evil thing. Miracles do happen and all you can do is pray. Stay strong and cherish the time you do have.

I am so sorry for you.

I don't know what to say, but you are in my thoughts. I hope all the best for your family.

Cancer treatments also continue to develop. For example immunotherapy seems promising.

Hi Joe90, I am so sorry to hear this about your mum. I understand what you are going through. Cancer took my dad when I was 26. Way too soon as far as I was concerned. Glad to hear you and your family will be getting some support. You can always reach out to us here too. (((HUGS)))

i hope what i have to say will not sound callous.
i was always paranoid about when the death of my mother and father would occur. a parent's love is the greatest love that can be really.
i knew that once my mother and father died, i would truly be alone in this world no matter how much anyone else reckoned they loved me. there are reasons that a spouse or friends would disown me and cease to love me, but there could be no reasons why my mother or father would cease to love me.
it is a great loss that i was sure i could not stand once it happened (the death of my parents).

i consoled myself (marginally) with the thought "it will have to happen one day. in 150 years time, everyone i know including me will certainly be dead and gone, and it has been that way for all people who have ever lived. i can ask God to spare me the grief until i am too old to care as much as i do now, but the time never comes when i will not care as much as i do".

if i was told by god that mum and dad would last 20 more years, that would have been great, but time always rolls by, and it is sooner than you think that 20 years will clock up and it will be "now" for you then.

my mother went in for a heart valve replacement and died before coming out of the anaesthetic (due to atrial fibrillation) and my father died 8 years later due to sadness about my mothers death (lost all interest and became alcoholic and eventually lost his appetite and frittered away).
i still feel that they are somewhere in the universe though strangely.

when one sees the birds singing and the people going about their business unaffected the day after my mother and father died, i realized that the world still goes on and as harsh as it is that nothing in nature seemed to care that they died, i knew that i would never have to worry again about their eventual death.

on another note, my brother in law had stage 4 bowel cancer which spread to his liver, and with an operation and chemotherapy and some other type of tablet (i can not remember it's name), he has no detectable cancer at this point.

are you sure it's incurable? if so, why put her through the rigors of chemotherapy? doctors usually suggest palliative care after they decide there is no hope.

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies.

I suppose all cancer is different, and apparently this cancer can be kept at bay and expand the life of my mum if she goes through the treatment. She may be poorly at first, but when she gets used to it, she should be able to continue living her life as normal, but still have to take the chemo every 2 weeks or even just once a month.

But what I'm worried about most is her immune system. I know chemo does make a person vulnerable to viruses, but I'm not sure how bad that is, like does it mean she will be like the boy in the bubble, where she cannot have any contact from anyone or anything?

That is early to lose a parent. Hopefully the treatments will work and you'll have another 10 years or more. Just make the best of the time you have and although you will be sad you'll not have any regrets when the time comes.

Chemo-Exposure, from what I have witnessed, when bringing a once-doctor into these Chemo-Sessions, causes the individual to become significantly weakened everywhere. You will notice that it is like the very muscles have deteriorated more and more each time, such that the patients begin to have trouble even walking, particularly after the fifth day in a row of exposure. Yes, you can probably expect a weakened immune-system, because the process of Chemo-Exposure is designed to kill everything (both healthy and unhealthy cells but also causes healthy cells to become unhealthy), not just the cancer-cells.

Additionally, cancer is not incurable (yes, yes, I know, now I am speaking blasphemy against "conventional" wisdom), and cancer-cells only seem to occur in people whose blood-Ph levels are too low, due to the environmental-conditions existing within the very blood-stream itself that allow the normal apoptosis to be disabled, resulting in uncontrollable cell-multiplication. Many of us in the alternate-research industries also believe that mammograms and too frequent of exposure to the radio-active elements of X-Ray screening are also contributing factors into causing cancer and that a number of foods in existence may also contain various levels of carcinogens. I also know for a fact that sugars (refined/processed) will weaken one's immune-system and consuming too many chocolates can often result in outbreaks of pimples or other types of herpes-variants.

Just so you know, consuming the right foods is the amongst best defenses against sickness and disease, with most vegetables having the effect of strengthening one's immune-system (particularly leafy greens like lettuce and spinach and other similar vegetables). I understand that fruits help to cleanse the body of impurities. Also read in reviews of The China Study that, when looking more closely at the studies that were conducted by their very own research, consumption of sugars and grains showed a higher correlation to cancer-rates than the eating of meat, even though many vegetarians/vegans seem to want to place the number one culprit to meat being the cause of cancer, when it's really grains and sugars that are the biggest risk-factors (more so than meat-consumption). Suppression is not all that uncommon in this particular realm of existence...

Ban dodger, talk of " I understand that fruits help to cleanse the body of impurities" just shows you don't understand how the body works.

The body has organs that do a very good job of cleansing the body of impurities. It is only when that not able to function they can't do this. If they didn't, you would know about it pretty fast. This is why term like "detox" are dubious scientifically. Eating healthly is important in prevention not cure. However there is no sure fire way.

You have made a lot of claims, with little evidence to back it up.

You claim that cancer is not incurable is pretty vague. Cancer is not one thing there a many types. Of course many cancer have a good prognosis of survival if treated early enough. Other have a very slim to non-existent chance.

Everybody knows that chemo is destructive, especially doctors. There is no conspiracy there. Chemo is a brutal process, better treatments have and will be developed. However sometimes it is the only option available. It will be phased out hopefully.

Yes sometimes better treatment are available elsewhere, and not available in that hospital or provider.

My friend has type 1 diabetes becuase of chemo, however he is alive.

This is tough news to deal with, I am sorry Joe.
With time you will likely adjust to a different type of care-giving life, your mum might feel blessed to have you looking out for her, as you seem to have gentle compassionate qualities.

Chemo is awful. If it will only prolong her life for a couple years, she (and you) need to ask if chemo is really worth it for such a small payoff. Your mom may be better off just letting the cancer go, and making what Americans call a "bucket list", which is a list of experiences a dying person wishes to have before they die, and then the person orients their life towards having those experiences before they die. Since the cancer is incurable, I don't know if she should go through the agony of chemo only to have less quality of life for the time she has left. Oh, and ignore Ban Dodger, cancer is not "curable" with diet, Steve Jobs tried it and wound up dead, but if he simply had chemo he might be alive today.