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Dealing with the news

beckstar73
April 2012
In the last month we have found out our step Dad has cancer, despite him being sick the shock of finding out firstly that he has a cancerous tumor on his windpipe to now finding out the cancer has spread to his shoulders back and spine has knocked us all for a 6. The doctor has been fantastic and is sending off a biopsy to see whether he is suitable for a treatment out of the US and well we are clinging to that hope. I think the hardest thing about this is just taking one day at a time instead of thinking ahead too much. We are all dealing with it differently and I feel I need to talk about it but dont want to upset anyone by bringing it up. Its literally eating me up inside and I guess the lack of control we all have to "fix it" is probably the hardest to deal with as we are a family that binds together to help each other and I dont think we know where to start right now. Anyway I need a place where I can offload my feelings daily or weekly otherwise i think it will send me crazy.
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harker
Frequent Contributor
April 2012
Great. That's why we all come onto this site. And I would take it a step further and make sure you say "I" and not "We" so much. Everyone in your family is going to react in their own individual way. There are some things you can do together but there are also things you can only do on your own. H
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wombat4
Contributor
April 2012
As a family binds together to help each other, now is the time to be your strongest. All the family will be feeling like you are, all devestated, and none want to talk about it for reason of not upsetting other family members.It is something that nobody dreamt would happen to them, but it has. Now is the time to talk to each other about your step dads illness. Start by discussing the options of treatment when they become available, which family members can take on which roles like transport, note taking at sessions with the doctors, getting medications, etc, all these roles help. When cancer breaks down the door and enters a family,it affects all inside that family. Now is the time to discuss things,and help in an emotional and practical way, all can play a part.But it must be brought out in the open, it does not help anyone to ignore it and pretend it isnt there. Good luck wombat,
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