61–70 of 142 posts
I am not sure which country you are in, but there might be government programs that partially subsidies a personal carer for your mother. I believe UK has it. It might be worth looking into these programs to hire someone (could be a family member) and offload some tasks from you.
It took an emotional toll on my family. I went to a competitive public high school so after feeling tired from school I would come back home and see my mom with a wig on or hooked up to a pneumatic pump which she still uses daily even after remission. It just made me feel even more depressed on top of the feeling I had of not being good enough to my peers. I even shamelessly tried to use this event in my college apps which was a terrible idea in hindsight.
But I realized that this mindset that I had wasn't productive. At least for me, I try to think about how there are people out there who have it way worse than me: abusive families, poverty, etc.. When I saw on Facebook that a classmate I knew had their mother pass from cancer and they still kept a positive attitude, I realized that my family had gotten lucky and that, for me, the problem I was dealing with wasn't so much my mom's cancer but my mindset.
So I would say just try to find something, anything, to be grateful for everyday. These things are emotionally devastating and I wish the best for your family.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Go to her oncologist appointments. This may or may not be possible. I went through cancer treatment earlier in the COVID pandemic and I was not allowed to have anyone with me at either my appointments or treatments, other than one early oncology visit where they wanted to make sure I had somebody else who knew what I was in for and understood what circumstances merited hauling me to the ER. Honestly, I think that w…
I wasn’t clear. I’m not suggesting sitting through treatment, I meant the monthly 17 second visit with the oncologist. Often mom wasn’t completely accurate in describing her condition or side effects. It’s useful for someone else to be there to help the MD get an accurate picture, and to remember what was said afterwards.
I tried to manage my work while going through it, and negotiated with my manager that I'd be working roughly 50% of my time with the possibility for unexpected days off (my mom had several hospitalizations for transfusions which were unplanned/unexepcted). It wore me out tremendously emotionally, and at the end of it I got a poor performance review for that time period.
I strongly regret not taking "family leave," which if you're in tech your company should offer. If I had taken it, I would have maintained good performance standing in my company as they default you to it if there's insufficient data. Instead, even though my manager was on board with giving me a good performance review, the "bar raisers" decided I hadn't done enough work in that time, and it had knock-on effects on my burnout, because on top of getting back to work normally post-chemo while already being exhausted, I now also had to work extra hard to get out of a bad performance situation.
Additionally, while I did get a good bit of work done during that time, if I had had the time completely free to take care of my mom I would have done a better job taking care of her, and would have had more time to also do self-care, which is extremely important when going through such a difficult time and watching someone you love suffer.
I really wish you the best, I completely understand your situation and you can reach out to me at ryan @ mcafeeryan [dot] com if you want to chat about any of it. It's going to be hard, it's going to suck, and you will get through it.
I put a brave face on and tried to support my family putting myself second. When I eventually addressed my own emotions and experience in therapy I realised I was only bringing about 10% of what I could have had a really looked after myself.
If I had that time again, during his treatment, I would have been there more for the brief peaks of his health and not rush back to work knowing the fire was briefly burning less, rather than just being there in troughs when he was less present and alert. Obviously be there for the tough times when your family needs you, but don’t let work take up precious moments you could be having with your mum.
Good luck, wishing you and your mum all the best.
This happened to one of my parents at the beginning of my career but I was a contractor and had to make ends meet in the new city I had just moved to. My parents were of the position that they raised me to do that specific thing and wanted me to do that. As far as focus, this wasn't difficult for me except when there was news. More than a couple times I did have to abruptly leave one city and transit to the other where my parent was in the hospital. There was no certainty about my job but that part did work out for me, but it just as easily could have not. For me, the separation allowed for more rationale prognosis because the original diagnosis was obviously a death sentence (your situation may be different and it wasnt specified in your post) and both me and my afflicted parent understood that pragmatically, but the people there through the whole process stuck with the hopium that a miracle would happen. They couldnt see the subtle deterioration day by day, but me being there every 3 weeks made the snapshots much more obvious. “Yeah spot on diagnosis doctor and the entire internet and all studies that omit how the few percent that do make the 5 year survival rate are not having a good time”. I think its easier to focus when being practical, like you dont need to be a nihilist to the people around you during the process but it is possible to skip all the stages of grief and accept it while keeping a positive outlook. Its not like the people that didn't beat cancer weren't strong enough, its just that a random direction of metastasis disrupted a crucial life process or not. So the stages of grief will be the most distracting if reality will not be accepted, but you can steer the energy positively without distorting reality.
If you take anything away from this is don't keep it to yourself, that never works.
Best of luck to your family and your mother.
My daughter was diagnosed with cancer at 3 years old (stage 4). I took "family leave", which is possible depending on which state you live in (within the US at least). I was able to take three months of leave (at a reduced pay). I lived in the hospital the entire time. I never went back to work though, I just couldn't find the focus, time or effort to be productive in a work/team environment. I honestly lost all "car…
Take care