First anniversary of my dad's death next week and now mum is dying

[Bloodyhellthathurts]

I just want to scream. My lovely dad died very suddenly last November and it completely broke my mum for months. She's just started coming out of herself a bit more and just now we got the news that she has inoperable lung cancer. I'm 35 and I'm going to lose both my parents. I know that people go through worse than this, I can't imagine how I'd cope if something happened to my baby, but still this seems so fucking unfair. Only a year ago everything was perfect.

I feel like a terrible person but now that we've had the diagnosis I just want it to be over. I don't want her to suffer. We need to find out how far advanced it is, but the cancer has spread and she's continually having to take morphine - its terrifying how much worse she's got in a week.

I don't think I've got organising another funeral in me.

So sorry to hear this, bloodyhell.

I really feel for you - we lost my dad last November too and I can't imagine how it would be to lose my mum too.

My father had cancer and even though his was inoperable we did have 8 years with him, I hope your mother can have some palative treatment and you can enjoy her last time. He had very very little time in pain even though he was diagnosed a whole ago.

Life is incredibly unfair sometimes x

I'm so sorry. Do you have support - a DH/DP/good friends? Use them - rant and rave at them, get the practical help you're going to need; this is the time to have no qualms whatsoever about taking all the goodwill you can get.

My father died suddenly like yours, and it was hard because there was no time for goodbyes - no time to say all those things you wish you'd said. And my mother died (from cancer) with plenty of time for goodbyes, but yet we didn't. I do understand that wanting it all to be over feeling. But use this time to get those memories from her, to talk about her childhood and to thank her and let her know how you feel. Ask all those questions you wish you'd asked. And keep posting here - there will be lots of support.

Thank you. It's a really large tumour and has already spread.. she seems so ill and in so much pain and I know she will refuse most treatment. Survival rates are so low anyway I think she just wants to go quickly and with dignity. When my dad died of a heart attack I thought it was a good way to die but terrible for the people around him as we never got to say goodbye. I don't know anymore. I'd rather not know that she's dying. She was meant to spend Christmas with us, I don't even know if she'll be here then. God. I thought they'd both be around to see their granddaughter growing up and now she'll never know either of them

i have no experience upon which to base any advice or comments but i saw your post and felt compelled to reply. i am so sorry for you. I agree with hassled -you can only look at this an opportunity to share some very special time with your mum, don't let anything go unsaid. life is incredibly unfair & cruel at times. we lost my grandad to lung cancer earlier this year and he didn't have any pain at all, but i can't deny it is a dreadful disease. it is natural to feel you want it to be over as quickly as possible because you're terrified of the unknown. try to be strong for your mum, i am sure she is as worried about leaving you as you are about her. you will do her proud right through to the end i am sure xxx

Your DD won't know them but you'll see them again in her. I get it from my DCs, and it gives me so much comfort - there'll be a look or a smile and I'll see my Dad again, or I'll listen to my feisty DD argue about whether the grass is green and I'll hear my Mum again. You'll get that, I promise - they'll still be very much about. She won't know them, but they'll be part of her.

Oh i am so sorry bloodyhell i know what it is to loose one parent quickly but to loose two. I am so sorry

I feel like a dreadful daughter. The three of us were so close but my dad was the glue, if you know what I mean, and losing him was the most dreadful thing that had ever happened. It affected my mum really badly and she became really quite angry and a bit spiteful, and its only in the last few months (since my dd was born) that we're back to normal. She's been complaining about chest pain for months and I kept telling her to see a doctor and secretly thinking she was being a bit of a hypochondriac. And now this. I've been so selfish and short-tempered with her.

She's very funny though. She phoned me from the hospital and her opening words were 'I TOLD you I was ill'..

If you were selfish and short-tempered it would be because you were grieving too, and she'll understand that. This isn't the time to be hard on yourself.

I agree with hassled you have hardly had time to grieve your dad

How dreadful :(

I wish you love and strength for the coming months. Cancer is a shit; we watched my mum suffer this time last year. Spend as much time as you can with her, tell her you love her - a very very emotionally charged and draining time, but so important.

Take care.

I'm so sorry, I can't even think if anything useful to say. My dad passed away last nov. I don't know what I'd do if in your position.

I'm so sorry, and I hope that your Mum gets good palliative care so that her pain and other symptoms can be managed, allowing you to have some special time together even though it may be short.
If your Mum has care from a local Hospice they may be able to offer her counselling support to explore the loss of your Dad as well as her own illness. Hospices are able to offer expertise in managing symptoms too, and support for the whole family. Do you have any siblings to help you look after your Mum?

Thank you all for your kind words. We got the news today that the cancer is in both lungs and treatment is a little bit futile, so she is on a course of medication to manage the pain and that is all. We are told to expect weeks, perhaps months. It's crazy to think that this time a year ago I thought that both my parents were in fine health - I know now that is not true, she must have had this for a while.

I do have a brother and sister and we are all committed to making the time that my mum has left as special as it can be.

I feel strangely numb. I half expected them to say there was a mistake and she would be fine.

Thank you all again, I feel like I am burdening my real life friends if I talk about this, it's nice to just be able to speak about it.

((( Bloodyhell )))

Oh bloodyhell that's shit, devasting. You must talk to rl people as well though we are of course always here.

You already know how important and special this presious time can be. Make the most of it.

Wishing your mum a comfortable and as pain free time as possible.

How is your mum?

Your story was my story. Dad died of a heart attack days before I gave birth to my first child. Mum diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer a year later.

I can remember feeling exactly the same as you, when we realised that there was no hope I just wanted her to be at peace and free from pain. Then I would feel like the worst daughter in the world for even thinking that.

I only have 1 sibling, a brother with special needs so things were very hard as we had to look after him as well as my year old dd.

I remember being absolutly terrified. And furious. It seemed so unfair to lose them both so quickly. In the end mum only lived for 3 weeks from diagnosis, and wasn't in great pain (or so she told me)

It helped me to think that she would be reunited with dad, she missed him so much it was heartbreaking.

Nothing can say will help but I do know exactly how you are feeling. It's utterly crap and you know your whole world is about to be changed.

It has been a few years since I lost them and time does help, although there are many times when I think 'oh I must ring mum and tell her that'. When I had dd2 it was hard not to have her around.

Sorry for rambling on but your story was so similar to mine I couldn't not post. Take care of yourself and your lovely mum. I hope she isn't in pain or distress.

Feel free to pm me if you want to offload.

Thank you, especially hairy (it feels rude calling you that!). I feel somehow robbed, my mum wasn't there for me during my pregnancy because she was so involved in grieving and now, when it's just started to feel like I've got her back, this happens. Which is a horribly self-involved way to think, I know.

In some ways it actually feels like I've been mourning her for the last year. But then it suddenly hits me and I remember what a fabulous mum she's been my whole life and I fall apart. My husband always said he'd never known anyone laugh as much as my mum. I miss the ways things used to be, I was always so smug about how great my parents were and felt so sorry for people who didn't have that relationship. But I guess that hasn't changed, I have still been incredibly lucky and that's what I need to hold on to.

Off to have an enormous cuddle with my daughter.

Hugs to you Bloody

I lost my lovely mum to lung cancer last year, its a cruel cruel disease.

My sister started to mourne for my mum as soon as she was diagnosed with terminal cancer........I just tried to be grateful for every second I still had her. We are all so very different.

Be gentle on yourself and try and make the most of your darling mum xxx

I have nothing profound to add Bloodyhell but for what it's worth, I would like to say how sorry I am to hear your sad news. I do hope for all your sakes that your mum is able to get good pain management drugs and you are able to enjoy what time you have left. Life is so so cruel sometimes.

Bloodyhell - I had a similar experience to yours. Dad died of a brain haemorrhage very suddenly in 2007 and Mum had cancer and died one year later. It is an overwhelming amount to cope with. My Mum had a swelling
in her mouth and I thought it was an abscess. She wouldn't go to the doctor and when she eventually had to, he was shocked and said it was cancer of the mouth. I felt guilty because she must have been in awful pain, but have come to accept that she chose not to have treatment and to go quickly.

Whatever you feel is natural - it is very cruel and harder still because you haven't had time to grieve for one before the other falls ill. It isn't selfish to want their pain to end. It is so hard to watch someone you love so much suffer. I felt overwhelmed with grief, but three years on can remember the good times without feeling overwhemed with all the pain at the end. One of my friends said she would rather feel terrible grief because she had such a good relationship with her parents. I feel like that too. It does get easier eventually, although you never stop missing them and loving them. Certain things remind you and are painful.

Am sending you my thoughts and good wishes. I hope it helps to know that some of us have been through something similar. I know it helps me to know that.

It does help to know that other people have gone through this. It's my dad's anniversary tomorrow and I remember initially not understanding how people cope with grief, it seemed like an intolerable amount of pain. And yet only a year later I think of him and smile much more often than I cry, so I know in time I will feel at peace with this as well.

Though I have missed my dad so very much this week it is actually a comfort now that he went first, he was so utterly in love with my mother that her illness would have broken him beyond belief. And she has been lost without him and just existing for the past year. I don't know, I've never believed in an afterlife but now i cling to the thought that they will be together again. They were such a brilliant couple.

Deep breaths.

bloodyhell it's my dad's anniversary tomorrow as well. He died of a heart attack too. That's a really weird coincidence. It's been 13 years since he died and my dd will be 13 in 11 days. It was a tough few months, dd was a comfort to my mum, I think it took the edge of her grief, although we kept looking at this tiny squidgy baby and thinking how much dad would have loved her

Sending you hugs ( v unmumsnetty) and strength xx

I am so sorry for your loss OP.

Look after yourself xx

I thought I would respond although I still have my Dad my Mum is going through exactly the same thing. My Dad recovered from bowel cancer a few years ago and Mum had just retired.
My Mum has been complaining of chest pain for a year or so and has been to her doctor about this but due to the fact she is a non smoker and has never smoked they assumed that it would not be lung cancer. Anyway lung cancer was confirmed on friday and she was told that it had already spread to her liver and without chemo she would only survive a few more weeks. She has opted to try chemo but this is only likely to prolong her life to 6m - a year.
I feel devestated and don't know how I can cope feeling like this, waiting for the ineviatable to happen. She told me today that I should not worry as she had come to terms with it and was prepared for death. I feel so selfish as in my head I thought but I am not ready to let you go yet. She is only 64, we were so close and I feel cheated.