Out of options

[mammymammymammy]

Today my DF was told there's no more options left . He's been battling stage 4 bowel cancer that has spread to his liver for over two years and as had chemo, radiotherapy, bowel and liver resection and has up to recently been disproving doctors by consistently winning every battle thrown at him .
But today is the day that cancer has finally started to win the war , he's been told that the cancer has spread to his lymph nodes and towards his aorta and that there's no treatments that will either improve the quality or quantity of his life and at best he's got between 3 and 12 months left .
Every time things have looked dire before the doctors have been able to pull out a treatment that they said probably wouldn't work but some how always did . But now there's nothing but a referral to a palliative care team . He's only 60 and to look at him you'd never even know he was ill I just can't get my head around it . We knew when he was diagnosed that his life would be limited but hearing those words have actually broken me . I don't know how to handle telling my dcs should I tell them now or wait til after Christmas. I don't know what I should tell them , obviously we told them grandad was sick when he was first diagnosed but all in child friendly terms.

So sorry for your sad news. Depending on their age I would wait until after Christmas speaking from experience. Sending hugs to you all.

I'm so sorry to read this, are you and your dad getting emotional support? McMillan are helping us at the moment and I'm finding that very useful

I'm so sorry, that must be really hard to take in. I think some of the charities offer good advice about how to talk to DC about it?

My heart goes out to you. Your post has so many similarities to what happened to my Dad, same disease and age. We also found out just before Christmas that there were no further options.

We didn't tell the dc until the february, we needed time to come to terms with it ourselves, before involving the dc. I'm so sorry you are going through this, it really is a dreadful time.

I lost my Dad to bowel cancer when he was 63. He'd only just retired, and it was a huge shock to us all. In his case, it had spread to his liver when they found it, and they could only offer chemo.

My dcs were 5 and 2. I told my eldest that my DF had cancer, which was a seriously illness that mainly affected old people, and that sometimes the doctor made them better, but sometimes they couldn't.

Then, about a fortnight before he died, I told DS that the doctors couldn't help and more.

I struggled with it, to be honest, and it took me a long time for it to sink in. I ended up having counselling through my GP which was amazingly helpful.

The one thing I will say, is that the last few months were bittersweet. Very happy memories, as well as sad memories, and every minute lasted a lot longer than normal. I think it's because you don't take anything for granted.

So sorry you are at this stage. Hopefully you are all getting support. Gentle hugs all round. Every moment seems bitter sweet, my dm is in a similar situation.

Regarding your dc, it depends on their age, little ones I would wait until you have to tell them, if they are in their teens or older then tell them. They will handle it better than you expect, be honest, answer their questions with facts and make sure rather than being the elephant in the room it is something they can talk about at anytime.

My DH is terminal stage 4 lung cancer with brain mets, we didn't tell our Ds for 2 months as he was doing his GCSEs - it was bloody hard work keeping it from him. We now tell him everything as he was worrying about stuff.

There's a thread in here "calm before the storm" there's a few of us wives with poorly DHs - it's a safe place to vent, scream and have gentle hugs.

Thank you everyone for your kind words and my sympathies to everyone else who is going through and gone through this . We have 6 dc between 17 and 7 and they are extremely close with my DF we live in the same town are see him at least a few times a week, the eldest three are 15,16 and 17 and they're are definitely going to realise something has changed , I just don't know how to break it to them . Thank you to those who mentioned Macmillan but we aren't in the uk so I'm not sure if we have Macmillan here , I'm going to look online now to see what support is a available here.
It just seems so unreal, he honestly doesn't even look ill , his thing all along as been positivity and determination that he'd beat it and even though logically I knew he wouldn't when he kept winning the fights you kind of let you heart buy into and think maybe he will.
Thank you for letting me vent as in real life I don't know how much he wants people outside the family to know .