Ask HN: Coping with cancer in the family

I am sorry to hear of this. I have been though a similar situation with my wife. She was diagnosed in early 30s and it was completely unexpected. About 6-7 year in retrospect, she managed through the surgeries/chemo fairly well. Being young is an advantage in that regard. Also, it was detected early and had a high chance of survival. Her mom was also retired and young enough to help with the daily stuff and general companionship during the processes. Even though it makes no real difference, you’ll find yourself wanting to be present at every treatment, doctors appointment, etc. And, it’s very difficult if you’re healthy and trying to minimize impact on your personal career.

All said, we had it very “easy”. But that didn’t lessen the impact it had on my psyche. The diagnosis and decisions about treatments put us in a cloud for easily 3 months (could hardly carry a conversation at work). Even after that, it took me about a full year to really feel like anything at work was even important. I coasted for probably 2 years all said. My work was extremely supportive and I offloaded much of my responsibilities. It was probably something similar to a depressive state. I disconnected from almost anything not related to family. Even now, I have not jumped back into my career full stop. I enjoyed the balanced pace and have only went after opportunities that aligned with that. (Probably common to what many people are doing now that it’s “post”-COVID). I view this as a silver lining along with the big silver lining of it pushing us to decide we actually did want a kid (we now have a 3yo).

If you’re the breadwinner and have a demanding job that does not tolerate lower performance, just be honest with yourself on your priorities and be proactive to leave on good terms and find the job that will work for you. What I learned most of all is, there are big things that happen in life that will force you to rip up your game plan and pivot. This is what worked for me. I met several people along the way that said they dealt with it by diving deeper into work. They found it a good distraction I suppose. But for me at least, that’s a recipe for regret and I never thought that made sense. I wish you good luck and hope my perspective/experience gives you food for thought at least. Email me if you want to chat (in profile).

I’m actually at an appointments for my sons leukemia right now.

My email is in my profile; feel free to reach out and/or look in my comment history. Sorry I don’t have time for a more in depth answer right now.

True, yes.

I actually meant: as one of the primary caregivers, you will be very busy and very drained emotionally. Accept help if offered.

The examples above would have been useful to me, if only to spare some energy for getting through the week.

It was also very draining on me to have people come around to talk about things and "support" us (actually the reverse in many cases), so I would also try to avoid these favours becoming social events. That's what would work for me, anyway.

Absolutely. What I had in mind was that if you choose not to pursue treatment, make it a conscious decision and be aware of the consequences.

There are many support forums for cancer, often specific to the type of cancer. Please consider joining them.

Those are of great help is many ways - they can tell you what to expect during various stages of the treatment, long term issues, clinical trial information (may be important if you're eligible), as well as support and success stories. People are always super helpful if you ask them questions.

In addition, if there's an inherited risk for the type of cancer, get yourself tested at the appropriate age.