Really struggling any help appreciated

[MJay]

I don’t know what to do, my husband has stage 4 brain cancer and I am his carer, he is still mostly independent at the moment. His oncologist has given him 12-15 months with treatment.
Our daughter lives with her partner an hour away, our son and his fiancée live with us. My son told me they want to get their own place, I understand and want them to have their own space and be happy but I don’t know if I will cope with them moving out. When my husband and I first moved out together we already had him so we have never lived alone together. Our daughter comes up and stays with us around once a month. My son said nothing will change as he will be here when I need him. I’m terrified to be here alone and deal with this by myself, I’m scared I’m going to get into a deep depression and will not be able to function. I feel I am already on a downward slope. There is more to this but I don’t feel comfortable writing it down in the forum but it is relevant to this aswell. 

[iloveyoudearly7]

Hi Mjay,

Welcome to our forums, it sounds like you still have some family support available to you but just not nearly enough as you need or desire. I see that you mentioned that your husband is still mainly okay to operate on his own at the moment, have you directly asked your son if he could provide some assistance during some days (even if they moved out). That way hopefully he cannot change the subject on you.

If things do happen to become a little more difficult in the future, there are recourses for you to take advantage of. You could arrange for an nurse to come and visit, to help you in the caring duties. I believe you can arrange this through either cancer council, centre link or the treating hospital (guidance counselor). But if it becomes too stressful...you can always place your husband in palliative care, that way the nurses will take on most of the pressure and caring needs as well. He would be well looked after and you could visit him everyday or even help yourself too but with less demand.

These are merely options to consider if the need ever crosses your path but for now maybe arranging a future schedule with your family, could help balance out the needs.

[MJay]

Thank you for your reply.
I do have a lot of family support and my son has assured me he will help and I will definitely look into all of those options when the time comes. I think a lot of this has to do with “empty nest” syndrome which is 100 times worse during these circumstances. If my husband was well and we were leading a “normal” life then this would not be a big issue. Thank you so much for your advice.

[iloveyoudearly7]

If you ever wanna talk in the future, please don't hesitate to keep us updated.

[Katekat]

Sending hugs to you @MJay ❤️

I've just sent you an email, welcoming you to the community, that contains some information about some of our telephone support groups. I realised that I forgot to mention that we actually have a group for people with brain cancer as well - you can read a little more about this group and how groups in general work, over here.

You may also like to give 13 11 20 a call and see if there's any further support we can help you with as well.

-Kate

Cancer Council Online Community Manager