My darling younger brother is 28 and was diagnosed last year with an unknown aggressive cancer (probably testicular) that has spread to his lymph and spine.
After a year of aggressive chemo, quite a few rounds of radiotherapy and maintaining hope despite emotional blow after emotional blow, we learned yesterday that any further treatment he has will have less than 10% chance of success. He is talking of refusing further treatment and enjoying any time he has left which doctors have said will be months not years. For the moment he is comfortable and walking with the aid of crutches and attempting to retain his sense of humour in the face of this knowledge.
I don't really know why I'm writing this, but just wanted to find out how others coped when they are facing a loss of a family member. We are a very close family, I currently live offshore but am flying back to the UK tomorrow night to be with them for a week. DH and I have a 6 month old DS who is the best thing through all this, as he's always happy. I hope bringing him back to London again will give everyone a welcome distraction.
Even though we've known this was a strong possibility, we always had hope but now that hope is all gone and I don't know how to handle that. Knowing how scared he must be reduces me to a gibbering wreck. I so badly want to be strong for him and his wonderful wife, and for my parents and older sister but I don't even know how to go about getting my game face on.
I don't even really know what I'm asking for, I think just any words of wisdom that I can refer to when the going gets tough or any ways that I can help my family through this.
Thank you in advance x