Being prepared - practical suggestions

[Ffsffsffsffsffs]

My mum is having investigations for lung cancer. From what they've said so far I think they're expecting the worst - multiple new and high-level tests requested after 2 years observing via xrays and CT scans, already asked her to bring support even in covid times for the results.

I'm the kind of person that keeps busy with practicalities before falling apart behind closed doors - this is not her first experience of cancer.

Does anyone have any suggestions of practical things I can do to support her if she gets the news we're expecting? POA? Getting added onto bank/savings accounts? Making a will? Funeral plans? (I know I'm catastrophising but I find it reassuring to have all the eventualities covered).

I know all the emotional support advice stuff - we've been here before - but last time the odds were so much better.

Thanks in advance

Definitely poa etc, but do give her time to think before you move forwards with arrangements like that.

Make sure you have a good list of contacts/passwords and so forth in case she has an unexpected hospital stay.

Can you investigate hospice care?
Blue badge?

Really hope the news isn’t as bad as you expect..

I’m so incredibly sorry you and your Mum are going through this 💐

As requested from personal experience I’d think of the following:

• funeral arrangements
• end of life decisions (I.e. living will but be super specific about what interventions she’d want e.g. possibly not machines but also what life support like feeding tubes? Just hydration? Neither?). Interventions she might want/be willing to have will change as her quality of life declines, keep that in mind.
• all things relating to finances (you will probably need to take over all financial control well before she may pass) including bank accounts, any savings, think about how you physically pay each company e.g. bills on her current home (what are her outgoings?)
• any vehicles? MOT? Mortgage on property?
• passwords and log in details for everything (start with her email address)
• updated will with relevant witnesses
• access to all medical information, medical POA and who GP/surgery is (inc NHS number)

I’d also talk to her more broadly about how she’d like to spend her last months/weeks/days and at what level of quality of life she’d like to move to the next ‘stage’. For example, at what point does she no longer live independently? What happens after that - carers at home? A care facility? Could she help choose the latter? And what comes after that? Would she like to die at home? Who would she like there?

Anything that you can do to find out what she might want will only make it easier for you when it comes to carrying out those actions further down the line (presuming she had been reasonable). I wasn’t able to with my parent but I think if I had been able to I would have agonised less over each and every decision, which was agony.

Do take it easy though - you don’t need to blast through this all in a day; it will be emotionally draining. If, like me, you like a good to-do list then drawing one up and ranking them in order of urgency would helpful. Then you can pick them off one by one.