Hi hun, I'm so sorry to hear that you are having such a sad time. I know that the thought of her being well cared for and hopefully benefiting from that cannot really comfort you for the fact that it has become necessary. It's a shit of a ride alright. Hope your people around you are holding on to you tightly through this moment. Xx Gabe. ... View more

Hi Jule, We do seem to have heaps in common. 🙂 My mum is also the love of my life. My daughter too, in a different way, of course, but I often have the irrational feeling that nobody could understand how much I love my mum and how much she means to me. No matter that I am middle aged, I still feel like that little kid, running into her arms when she got home from work. I don't know that they have said how many more cycles. She had 9 initially and had had one or two more before they stopped due to the numbness. She thinks that has improved a bit but it is still a worry for sure. At least for now we can be really happy with the good results. My sister and my niece and Mum posted some photos on whats ap when they were out celebrating after the Dr appointment and they were all just beaming. Here's to the good days for us all and for the good people who are there on good days and bad. All my best wishes, Gabe ... View more

Hi Jule, Thank-you so much for your replies. Just writing to you last night helped get the feelings out of my head and I got off to sleep for a few hours. How hard does it feel to get yourself up for work when you have a bad night? But then once I get into a class room and get teaching it really sort of puts me right again. I do have some good friends and a supportive boss and my 22yr old daughter has been pretty amazing as well. Having her close has helped us both in the past few months. But in the last few days, since we heard they had found a tumour on Mum's spine, I have felt so scared and sad that I realise I have been keeping things at bay a bit and not thinking or talking openly about how big and terrible it is with anyone except my daughter, and even we don't talk about it all the time. We have road tripped to see Mum twice since the diagnosis and that has been really good, though the particular kind of hardness of being at a distance is replaced with reality of the constant anxiety about how she might be feeling all day every day. I respect and feel so grateful to my sister who has moved back home to care for Mum and our step dad who is ten years older. When we come home I do feel a bit in the dark sometimes though Mum and my sister really try to keep us in the loop as much as possible. And then, after a bad night, fearing bad news today, it was good news! Doctors say that all the tumours, including the one on her spine, have shrunk a lot and her marker levels have dropped right down. I don't really understand what it all means in technical terms but everyone is much happier tonight. They are keeping on with the chemo which has its own scary issues (she has developed numb feet and hands so far) but at least it is doing the job on the cancer right now. When she first got the news in March/April that she had multiple tumours including in lymph nodes we were all feeling so bad and finding it hard to maintain optimism or to know what we could reasonably hope for. That fact that she was already having pain was so confronting. One thing she was determined to do was to go on a planned family cruise (first one ever for us) in New Zealand in December, and her doctors had remained fairly reassuring that she would be able to come. Today she got that hope back after being feeling pretty shaken last week. I am so thankful for that. I just so want her to have that to look forward to and enjoy, whatever next year might bring. I turn 50 in December, and the trip started out as my big birthday plan, but has become so much more now. It was wonderful that your Mum got to go with your sister to see her wedding dress. My heart goes out to you Jule, that big, big distance is so tough, along with all the other really tough things. Do you have the good supports around you? But I agree, writing here is in itself amazingly helpful. I am glad you have found comfort in it. I hope you have a good sleep and a good day tomorrow. Thanks again, so much, for your kindness. Take care, Gabe ... View more

Hi Jule, I'm Gabe. My lovely Mum who is also in her 70s is not as far away as yours, but still 2000 km away from me. My sister is with her but I feel so sad and weird to not be there. She was diagnosed in March with uterine cancer, that seems to have escaped all over the place . She has had 9 weeks of chemo and just started to have problems with numbness in hands and feet. Some tumours have shrunk but some have grown and they have found something now on her spine. Tomorrow she gets results of a scan to find out more about it. This is my first time here. I can't sleep tonight. Every time i try, I think about it and have a big bawl. It must be so much harder to be on the other side of the world from them. I think about chucking in my job or applying for long service leave, but don't know when to do it. Feels like being in limbo. I have been in denial and telling everyone i am ok. Just this week I now feel I am not ok and really alone and messy. Feel better just typing this out though. I hope you have good news and good supports around you. I hope it is ok for me to tell my stuff to you here. I know I should read up on etiquette and do the intro section and all that, but am in boo hoo, 2am mode and just needed to make a connection to someone who understands. ... View more