Friend just diagnosed with terminal cancer.

[stella1w]

I have a close friend who has just been told she has incurable bone cancer that can be controlled, but which has a survival rate of 0 to 10 years. Of course, I googled it and found that five years was pretty much the longest time people get with this kind of cancer.
I am the only one she has told so far, though she plans to tell her family in the next few weeks.
She lives 3,000 miles away, so while I hope to visit at least once a year I can't be of any daytoday help or support.
So my question is to anyone who has experience of this - what is the best thing a long-distance friend can do? If you have undergone chemo etc, did you want magazines, letters, DVDs, wine??
What helped and what didn't and what helped to hear and what didn't. I want to tell her all the time how much she mean to me, but I don't want to be maudlin and sound like a eulogy.
Thanks

I'm really sorry, what a shock for you both. She may not be able to drink wine if she's having chemo, it has a tendency to make patients vomit. My friend found that it gave her incredibly sore hands, I think the side effects differ. I'd send her letters and magazines.

How sad. I think you need to take your lead from your friend and let her say what she wants. One of my friends wanted lots of contact, to reassure her she was loved and cherished. I wrote every day for a few months before she died. At her funeral, her Mum told me it was a great help to receive mail daily, as it gave them something to talk about, however trivial. Even just saying that you were in a shop and they've changed their signage can trigger a bit of conversation.

Another friend wanted to behave as normally as possible.

I would think that wine might interfere with any treatment, so best to keep her spirits up with lots of emails and comments from home, but not too maudlin.

I had chemo for breast cancer.Alcohol is a no no-it enhances the chemo effects and chemo makes you feel like shit anyway.I appreciated daily short texts,books/magazines,herbal teabags,citrus sweets eg sherbet lemons.I was often too tired to talk and my concentration wasnt up to demanding literature.My d-i-l was amazing-a weekly care parcel with a magazine,a few teabags or sweets and sometimes a book or dvd.
Let her talk about her illness if she wants but dont 'harp' on it.Just 'be there' and be sure she knows you are.You sound like a great friend.

Write letters and e-mails, even if she can't/ doesn't respond to them all they are a way of showing her you love her.
I have lost two close, long time friends to cancer and their respective families both said that my letters/postcards/e-mails were well received by my friends.
I'm so sorry for your friend and for you OP.

Ooh yes-special hand cream-not perfumed-avoid perfumed toiletries completely.

pranma I like the sound of 'I care' parcels :)

many thanks for this. my friend is a great reader but obviously will not be up to reading much for a while. So I will send care parcels and avoid scented things etc. Hopefully she will tell her family soon and they can also give me some ideas.

Audio books?

When my close friend was in the same situation, she found her skin was really dry so some neutral moisteriser would help. She also devoured books and letters.