I'll give you my advice first: get everything as organized as possible. Ask all of the questions that no one wants to ask. More than that, make absolute sure that she knows you love and appreciate her. Retell hilarious stories and memories. Try to spend SOME amount of time just hanging out. As you can imagine, a person with cancer pretty much has to deal with, think about, and talk about cancer all the damn day long. A break from that every now and then is very good.


Now...my perspective:

My pops died March 19, 2019. 5:05 PM on a Tuesday at the house on his 4th day of hospice if more deets are desired.

He got a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis in August of 2016. They gave him a 50/50 shot of living 2.5 years. He made it about that long. I went to most of his chemo infusions, doctor's visits, all of that.

Chemo worked VERY well at first. He even got well enough to get the big tumor in his colon removed in July of 2017. After that, the 'clean up' chemo didn't work as well. He had to switch meds a few times. Of course, each have different side effects.

I didn't really start thinking he wasn't gonna make it until the fall of 2018. After a while, he had slipped on his key/basic habits (staying active, eating a regular/decent diet, STAYING HYDRATED). It eventually dried him out to the point where he ended up having a 'mild' stroke Christmas 2018. Allegedly, it wasn't cancer on his brain, but it had started spreading all into his core. The dehydration was viewed as the cause of the stroke.

Cancer and some chemos mess with your blood quite a bit. That's a big reason why they ask that you hydrate. Anyway, he got a bladder infection around the same time. Here's the lamest thing I found out during this time: you can't take antibiotics and chemo at the same time. They'll nullify each other.

With that, my pops was basically screwed. He kept getting infections, his cancer spread, and never stayed out of the hospital for more than 2 weeks. He eventually got sentenced to hospice the Friday before he died. They said he'd make it 4 weeks max. He died 4 days later.

It's been almost 5 months and I can't tell you that it gets a whole lot better unless you decide to push yourself back towards healthy habits. I got my hydration on track, but I'm still eating horribly and I can't keep a workout schedule to save my life. I actually sat down at the desk to put together my August workout plan before I saw this message.


>So the past month since the boards took a break, my whole
>life has been consumed by my Mom's cancer diagnoses.
>
>Founds out on June 26th, that her Colon cancer seemed to had
>spread to her lungs and other pars of the intestines.
>
>July 14th, we take her to the ER due to a mother of a
>headache, turns out to be a brain tumor. She had to stay in
>the hospital to have tests done and to speak with a
>neurosurgeon. All the focus shifted to the brain. She's
>scheduled for surgery on the 14th of Aug.
>
>She's been home since the 23rd and the poor thing is miserable
>from the pain in her head.
>
>I've hadn't dealt with anything like this before. The 1st
>significant person in my life to pass away was my Grandmom and
>that was 2 years ago.
>
>I feel a mixture discouragement, numbness, and selfishness. I
>have never been good at multitasking, so I focus on how I feel
>and dwell, then move on. But haven't been, moving on. I keep
>dwelling on me being upset at my mom possibly dying. I'm
>having hard time focusing on the positives. I get so mad at
>myself about that.
>
>I stopped excising, eating shit food, ignoring duties at work,
>and also arguing with my wife. (that will be another post, cuz
>man did she piss me off).
>
>my mom isn't dead yet, I know that. I can't help but think
>about it and it just putting me down. Any insight?
>
>Thank you