The way to cope with your mother's lung cancer diagnosis

Without meaning to be totally insensitive to your shock and sadness about your mother's diagnosis, at this time, this is about her and not you.

Want to help her and yourself?

• Educate yourself about this disease so you know what she faces. 
• Go with her to her oncologist and listen to the treatment plans. Take notes so that if she can't remember the details, you have them. She may be in a kind of shock right now.
• Go with her to treatments.
• Be brave -- it's contagious.
• Allow her to keep her dignity and to do all she can, as long as she can.
• Do whatever makes her physically comfortable.
• Be yourself.
• As things progress, make a card tree in her house for all the cards she will get from friends and relatives so she will have a reminder that people care about her when they can't visit. 
• Try to make life as normal for her as possible.
• Do NOT be all gloom and doom.
• Love her -- love is a verb.
• Listen to her.
• Be kind.
• Be an adult child who learned how to nurture from an incredible lady.
• Be grateful.

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Jeffrey Poehlmann, blogging about cancer and other things at http://www.justbadforyou.com/blog

Written Apr 27, 2016

This is a pretty common emotional response. The prospect of losing a loved one to any condition, especially, perhaps, cancer because it is so culturally loaded, is extremely difficult.

But we all have to face death in our lives, even of those we love and admire and connect to as a regular part of our lives.

You are extremely lucky to be young and have children, to whom you are responsible and for whom you will be fulfilling the same role that your mother has filled for you. Think about that, about how you will want your children to cope when you die. And imagine how your mother wants you to respond to her passing. Perhaps you have even talked about this before.

But don't focus on her death now. There will be time for that later. Right now, focus on celebrating the time you have left, and even when she dies, try to focus on celebrating your memories and your history. We all lose our parents at some point, and it is never easy if you were close (often even if you were not close). I miss my father all the time and I am grateful every time I get to talk with my mother -- even if she is irritating. There is just something special about that relationship, even when they are painful to maintain, so having a parent that you consider a best friend is pretty amazing and you should continue to embrace that. But don't let the threat of cancer diminish h0w you feel together.

When your mother is undergoing treatment, she will need a good friend to talk to -- not about cancer, but about life. Talk about the same things that you always talk about. Be a good friend to her. And help her connect with her other friends, the ones who "knew her when" and make sure that you are always there to listen when she needs it. But also find some outlets AWAY from your mother. Being a caregiver is extremely stressful, even when the cancer is curable or highly treatable (as progressively more lung cancers are). I don't know the diagnosis of your mother's cancer (I've got Stage IV, myself, and it is being managed extremely well;I expect to be around for a long time yet -- just had an infusion yesterday and I'm feeling good after doing this every three weeks for about a year and a half), but I will say that just "having cancer" is not the end of the world. Living with cancer is still an option for more and more patients, for longer and longer terms. Even if she is in an advanced stage, treatment may offer her anywhere from a few really good extra months to enough years that she could easily "outlive" the cancer and die of something else entirely.

So my advice for coping is to embrace the day. Focus on the loving relationship and what has always made it work for you. Don't look at this as all doom and gloom. Look at it as an opportunity to focus -- do the things you want to do together, make the time to fill in any remaining gaps, but mostly, enjoy the time you have and notice what it is that makes this world a wonderful place.

Morever, This is a pretty common emotional response. The prospect of losing a loved one to any condition, especially, perhaps, cancer because it is so culturally loaded, is extremely difficult.

But we all have to face death in our lives, even of those we love and admire and connect to as a regular part of our lives.

You are extremely lucky to be young and have children, to whom you are responsible and for whom you will be fulfilling the same role that your mother has filled for you. Think about that, about how you will want your children to cope when you die. And imagine how your mother wants you to respond to her passing. Perhaps you have even talked about this before.

But don't focus on her death now. There will be time for that later. Right now, focus on celebrating the time you have left, and even when she dies, try to focus on celebrating your memories and your history. We all lose our parents at some point, and it is never easy if you were close (often even if you were not close). I miss my father all the time and I am grateful every time I get to talk with my mother -- even if she is irritating. There is just something special about that relationship, even when they are painful to maintain, so having a parent that you consider a best friend is pretty amazing and you should continue to embrace that. But don't let the threat of cancer diminish h0w you feel together.

When your mother is undergoing treatment, she will need a good friend to talk to -- not about cancer, but about life. Talk about the same things that you always talk about. Be a good friend to her. And help her connect with her other friends, the ones who "knew her when" and make sure that you are always there to listen when she needs it. But also find some outlets AWAY from your mother. Being a caregiver is extremely stressful, even when the cancer is curable or highly treatable (as progressively more lung cancers are). I don't know the diagnosis of your mother's cancer (I've got Stage IV, myself, and it is being managed extremely well;I expect to be around for a long time yet -- just had an infusion yesterday and I'm feeling good after doing this every three weeks for about a year and a half), but I will say that just "having cancer" is not the end of the world. Living with cancer is still an option for more and more patients, for longer and longer terms. Even if she is in an advanced stage, treatment may offer her anywhere from a few really good extra months to enough years that she could easily "outlive" the cancer and die of something else entirely.

So my advice for coping is to embrace the day. Focus on the loving relationship and what has always made it work for you. Don't look at this as all doom and gloom. Look at it as an opportunity to focus -- do the things you want to do together, make the time to fill in any remaining gaps, but mostly, enjoy the time you have and notice what it is that makes this world a wonderful place.