Just had some v unpleasant news. She’s off to hospital next week for treatment. Not sure yet what the diagnosis is – will find out later tonight when I speak to my bro. He’s not one to ask for help normally but did this time – mum and dad off to stay with him (he has 2 young kids) tomorrow.

Other than be there when he needs to talk about it/go over if he asks, what’s the best I can do to support him/sister in law/parents? I’m in London and he’s in Dublin so not that easy to pop over for the day…

Anyone got any experience of this?

Cheers

Order a book called”lost for words” available free from http://www.cancerbacup.org.uk lots of good advice on the site and lots of booklets. freephone 0808 800 1234.

Alot of cancers can be treated if caught earlier enough,best wishes to all concerned.

Be there when he needs to talk, don’t avoid the subject, and be empathetic.

Try and arrange something that they can both do with you to take them away from the day to day routine.

Banal topics of conversation.

Seriously ,about this time last year my mother was in hospital with extremely serious post operative complications after cancer surgery and getting to talk and think about something else for however short a period of time was a great relief.

Other than that just be prepared to listen to him talk about whatever he wants.

I agree with gonefishin, this time almost 5 years I go I was in your brother’s situation, he’ll be hearing quite enough about cancer and treatments from the many hospital visits. A bit of normality worked for us, as much as possible go on with life as usual, obviously be there if he wants to get anything off his chest but otherwise just have ordinary conversations . I know this sounds a bit trite but there’s no easy answer and everyone is different but I just thought I’d share our experience.

Just being there can be enough.

Hope she gets better.

I have had some very recent experiance of being given Cancer news & I found this site useful for info;

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/

I hope this is useful & as said above everyone deals with this differently. Believe me I’ve been through the whole roller coaster of emotions from being happy as Larry one minute to **** me I’m a gonner. Be supportive, be there if they need someone to talk too & don’t let them feel that they are alone trying to get through this.

Good luck & feel free to PM me if you want to ‘talk’ to someone else.

Sorry news, All you can do is be there, listen, shoulder to cry on & IMO the main thing – be possitive when you’re talking to him / her.
Good luck to you all – hope it all goes well.

Best of luck to all concerned. It’s a real rollercoaster but yot absolutely have to keep going about normal life for everyone else involved however hard it may seem. Speak to macmillon as they have seen everything and are unbelievably good at helping out.

From the experience with my mother I’d say the best thing is to be there for him when he needs you. Don’t smother him and try to maintain some semblance of normality around him and his wife. A lot of this is something he will manage to get through if you’re there but don’t make yourself so intrusive in his life that you add more stress (several friends did this with my parents).

All the best and I hope it all works out well.

sorry to hear that, just spent the last 4 years living with this, with a wife who must be a similar age as i have 2 young children also, while my experience has a sad end – its important that he understands that there are plenty of treatments that will hopefully cure, and there are alot of people in remission (get this across as they may feel they have just been given a death sentance, thit is not the case)- his wife is young and fit and so she will be able to endure the treatment.

He just needs to know you are there for him, keep talking, let them know you love them, and when the initial shock wears off – keep encouraging them to live life, they must not stop doing things.

Please feel free to drop an email / get him to, db004u0093@blueyonder.co.uk

good luck – Dave

Just listen to him. There’s not much to be done apart from listening and offering practical support like child care, company & the like unless you have a professional interest in the field. Like folks here have already said, you pass through a series of stages as you get used to the news and you need other people to share that with to help you make sense of it.

cancerbackup, the various research and support charities and the American NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI have a variety of helpful information for people with cancer and those who know them.

With a firm diagnosis the treatment options become more apparent as does the prognosis.

Cheers all, thanks for sharing and offers of a chat. Will take you up on that if needs be. He wanted to talk about work mainly – normal stuff as suggested.

On a similar vein – my dad has terminal cancer. Up till now i’ve sort of managed to not really think about it but I’m slowly realising that I am not very well equipped to cope with the whole thing. I just don;t know what to say to him, how to be around him and he’s my dad ffs. Is actually really stressful now for me and partially alleviated by me living halfway round the world although that in itself makes it even more difficult when i do see him, its like i need to cram it all in. I’m going back to see him tomorrow and am feeling phsyically sick about the whole trip 🙁 Anyone been there done that and got any advice (other than to MTFU and make sure my mum is cool ?)

NZCol – Similar situation to yourself last Summer. Father had terminal cancer. I never grew up being particularly close to him emotionally in a father-son way, however, just spending a bit of time together chilling, going for walks when he was strong enough, talking about random day to day stuff. This was really therapeutic for both of us. I think at one point we were waxing lyrical about OS maps, and how incredible the level of detail is – stuff like that.

I did find it difficult to deal with, almost to the point where I felt like I wanted to bury my head in the sand. But in the end I was glad that we did spend some time together, and it was those little conversations about stuff that will be some of my overriding memories.

All the best.