Hi your not to blame for your mum not one bit and no one will thinks you are but its its there but eventualy you do work it out in your head at the moment your grieving lost and emotionally exhausted i felt terrible guilt when my partner died seems to go hand in hand with grief .you did all you could we all think we cauld have done more that feeling goes eventualy could you realy have saved your mum when the drs couldnt not lodgical realy is it .if your getting bad flashbacks you realy need to go to gp it could be ptsd its not just soldiers that get i kept getting flashbacks but there dwindling now . You cant be with someone all the time for appointments thats not for you to do you dont say if your dads still with you but like me i took liz to every appointment liz didnt want her there some of its very personal i was like a mother hen with liz but 4 days after first chemo liz had a massive stroke and died of sepsis in to days i thought i had coverd everything didnt see the stroke coming .but sepsis took her quick as the chemo had weakend her immune sytem and it ravaged through her body . But in a way i was releived as she went quick i had been on at her to drinkmore before the stroke and i thought i had caused the stroke bet you think thats ridicules but didnt see it that way thats how your feeling  . You dont say where you live but if your in uk all the hospices have councilers so if you find locale hospice number ask to spk to head counciler and see what they can offer it hurts a first but dont give up, keep at it every week you get to chat to an expert ask questions rant cry they understand theres also likely to be a bereavement group people go every week and talk about there loss listen to oneanother and share there greif and you come on and talk to us .if it all get to much you can ring the Samaritans so you see theres help out there you just have to ask .like here we are all in this rotten club but sure glad we are.theres a post on here from sarapine8 its called signs after loss it may give you comfort .but you will be ok in time just put one foot forward every day put something ahead to look forward to go for walks all these little things add up to a big thing .my best wishs to you .paul

Hi , 

I'm so sorry for your loss and the pain you are feeling , it's sounds like you have had a rough time .

One thing I'm sure of is your mum was not thinking you failed her , she would of known you were there for her and doing everything you could .

Have you tried writing everything down ? I have read\heard other people saying it helps .

I didn't go to any of my Mums consultations but that was her choice and I wanted to go , I found out towards the end she had been bending the truth slightly which is why she didn't want anyone there ! 

You need to take some comfort in the fact she wasn't alone but it sounds like what you witnessed will be taking over all thoughts .

Maybe try and find a helpline or live chat on one of the cancer charity sites (I haven't looked on any for these things) and hopefully coming on here and opening up might give you a bit of release . Don't be afraid to ask for help .

I sat with my mum for her last 16 hours with my husband and I take comfort in knowing she wasn't alone and other family members got there just in time , but that night and morning are still in my head 5 weeks later like it's still happening .

Keep posting it will help and look after yourself .

Debbie x 

Thank you for the replies.

Originally my mum hid her cancer from everyone, I think she said she first noticed a lump sometime in mid-late 2014.

By late 2015 it had caused her right arm to swell up massively so she could no longer hide it and when we finally presented it to the doctors in November 2015 at which point it was already stage 4.  Her entire breast was decaying and rotting at this point, she went on chemo and immou therapy and seemed to have a good response in 2017 her breast looked normal again but in early 2018 she started to get fluid in the lung alot , had to have it drained several times then they installed a permenant drain into her side.

ofcourse when they did that it stopped filling up with fluid! 

we removed the drain few months later but an infection got into her lung and she collapsed with sepsis in december 2018.   She was never the same after her sepsis and generally lost alot of strength.

I think the cancer must of come back sometime in early 2018 and none of the treatments were working so they put her on capecitabine and then eribulin, both of which she did not tolerate well.

I was very angry with my mum when she told me she had cancer and hid it for over a year letting it grow and spread. But she said she was just scared to confront it and thought it would go away

I lost my dad to bowel cancer in 2013 aswell which was also painful although he seemed to die "peacefully" while in a coma.

But....  the way my mum died was horrific to see. Ill never recover from it.

I also thought the nurses on the NHS ward were far below satisfactory.  Everytime I asked for help they would give the impression you were "bothering" them.  They were rude and uncaring. 

I think the anger when you found out is completely normal , I threw her out of my house (not my proudest moment) when I found out she had been ill and having tests for months , my sister gave her a bit of a whack for the same reasons ! Maybe all mums think they should be protecting their children for ever , I did point out to her we are all in our 40's . When we found out it was classified as stage 4 .

Hers was lung cancer which had spread to her ribs and lymph nodes . We had 10 months from finding out to her passing . She had 2 courses of chemo but stopped after that .

We had been having a lot of disagreements over the last 2 years so I had to build bridges very quickly but I'm still wondering if I went far enough .

I'm interested to hear how she got on with the immunotherapy, my mum had it and it actually made her worse by attacking her spine which started compressing .

If you can be lucky in this sort of situation we were , all the staff on the cancer ward she was on where amazing and we never felt like a problem no matter what . By the end she was on so much medication she wasn't really with it .

Is there a patient liaison office in the hospital she was in ? You should be able to raise your concerns and might get some answers. No one should have to be in the situation you were in .

I keep reading how there is no right or wrong way to cope  but I think you have had such an awful experience that you can't even start to deal with her passing , it must be horrendous for you to keep going over it . I think you are right with saying you will never recover from it but hopefully you can find some help to help you cope with it .

Do you have any cancer hospices near you ? Many have bereavement councillors and even if there isn't one near by you might be able to chat on the phone . The st Luke's hospice staff explained everything in such simple terms to us it made it easier to manage all the information. There are some amazing people out there who will be able to help .

I know you said there is hardly any family but is there anyone you could talk to about what you witnessed? Some people don't want to know but you need to keep talking about it .

I wish I had some quick easy solution but I don't think there is one in this situation .

take care 

Debbie x