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How cancer affects family
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During the Spring of 2012 my mother became ill with bilateral breast cancer. During this time I was in school and unable to travel to see her or assist my brothers. Being that she was the only family member I lived with it was difficult to focus on my schoolwork as well as think about my mom and two brothers who were at home with these problems. My mother would recover and return to health a year later after surgery and treatment, but the issues continued to arise in our home. In 2014 during my final year of college my mother's company began to lay off workers and unluckily my mother who had worked at the job for 17 years was one of those being terminated. This caused a big hit financially and we were strained at home to pay the mortgage
hardship, the only option available to ensure that they can afford their monthly mortgage is to
The financial situation was especially worrisome for my personal household during the Great Recession. My parents had gotten a divorce shortly before the recession began, so my dad had to pay my mom alimony. My sister and I chose to keep living in our house with my dad. When the recession came, my father was working at a steel plant, and they were laying off several workers, so he had
Living our busy lives no one else in the family could travel to Houston. Grandma was a strong woman. She could overcome anything and cancer was not going to defeat her. When she arrived at the hospital the doctors took a cat scan and figured out that she had stage four melanoma skin cancer. While my mother and grandma were at M.D. Anderson I was at home living a normal life just starting my first high school basketball season. Every night I worried about how she was doing not thinking about my school work or my athletics. A couple weeks later I called grandma and asked her how she was doing and she assured me that everything was going to be okay and that I should not worry about her. That’s how she lived. She never put herself first in any situation and family and friends were her main focus. Grandma would do anything to make her grandkids happy. I told my grandma I loved her and hung up the phone. The next day at school I looked up the percentage of people killed by melanoma skin cancer and the results were not good. One person dies of melanoma every 54 minutes. When I got home that evening I told my dad that I needed to be in Houston with my grandma. He said he didn’t think that he could make it happen with his busy schedule. I called my mom upset realizing that
Almost all of us have heard of a scenario such as this one: A woman battling cancer has lost almost all hope of recovery. She has not been able to turn to her family for support for fear of their reactions to her illness. One morning she finally breaks down and tells her husband about the cancer. Instead of being devastated and turning his back on his wife, the husband supports the wife, every step of the way, and she gradually seems to improve.
I chose to discuss a chronic illness that has actually affected my family, rather than an illness that could affect a patient of mine. My mother-in-law has been diagnosed with cancer multiple times. The first time, was when my husband was 16 years old. She was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer. She was put on a waiting list
In December of 2010, my grandmother was diagnosed with a severe case of Mesothelioma. This news was incredibly overwhelming for my family because the oncologist said that the cancer had proliferated, and there was not much he could actually do. Later on, we found out she only had three more month to live. My grandma underwent chemotherapy for almost two months, but her condition worsened significantly. The oncologist demanded how her treatment plan would carry on, and never offered my grandma any choices. I wondered why my grandma was getting worse as the days went by. My fam...
When she learned she had Cancer, she organized herself into a one-woman battle squad. Anyone who knew my mother knows that sitting down and letting the sickness take over was just not in her. She took the eighteen month prognosis they gave her , smiled, and threw it out the window. Shortly after her diagnosis,...
About 12% of women in the United States will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, more than any other type of cancer (www.breastcancer.org, 2015). Many people lack the knowledge of how breast cancer is developed. Some people think they will not get cancer because they do not smoke cigarettes, but this is not the only cause of cancer developing in the breast. Anyone can get cancer. Everyone is potentially at risk for developing some form of Cancer (American Cancer Society, 2015).
Snyder, K.S., Pearse W., (2010). Crisis, Social Support, and the Family Response: Exploring the Narratives of Young Breast Cancer Survivors. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology. 28(4) doi: 10.1080/07347332.2010.484830
One fateful day at the end of June in 1998 when I was spending some time at home; my mother came to me with the bad news: my parent's best friend, Tommy, had been diagnosed with brain cancer. He had been sick for some time and we all had anxiously been awaiting a prognosis. But none of us were ready for the bumpy roads that lay ahead: testing, surgery, chemotherapy, nausea, headaches, and fatigue. Even loud music would induce vomiting. He just felt all around lousy.
Although rarely asked, don't mind at all since at least I'm here to talk about my bout with cancer. I'm trusting your cancer is in complete remission as is my (100%) case that started with discovery of Breast Cancer (x2).
Imagine having to wake up each day wondering if that day will be the last time you see or speak to your father. Individuals should really find a way to recognize that nothing in life is guaranteed and that they should live every day like it could be there last. This is the story of my father’s battle with cancer and the toll it took on himself and everyone close to him. My father was very young when he was first diagnosed with cancer. Lately, his current health situation is much different than what it was just a few months ago. Nobody was ready for what was about to happen to my dad, and I was not ready to take on so many new responsibilities at such an adolescent age. I quickly learned to look at life much differently than I had. Your roles change when you have a parent who is sick. You suddenly become the caregiver to them, not the other way around.
She began to suffer from hair and weight loss as well as the color change of her skin. My mind began to intersect with thoughts of her dying from cancer. I decided negativity would no longer control my thoughts; I had a grandmother who needed me to be strong and think positive about her condition, regardless of the situation and her physical changes. During the time of my grandmother chemotherapy treatments, I would miss school to attend her appointments. As a sophomore in high school, I could only miss a small amount of days before any negative effects displayed toward my grades. Therefore, I would miss school every Tuesday and Thursday for the next four months of my first semester of tenth grade. I didn’t mind because my grandmother meant the world to me and I would have done it a thousand times, if I was given the
On July 30, 1997 30 days after my fifth birthday I lost my mom Pamela Sue Erwin to emphysema. First, emphysema is a condition where you lack oxygen to your lungs, severely too the point you can not get enough oxygen to the brain. I remember vividly the impact this disease had on my mom. I could tell she was miserable and every day that passed she was losing her mind. I remember my brother coming over before the disease progressed, bringing a new paper. He told my
While in school, Mom didn’t have it to easy. Not only did she raise a daughter and take care of a husband, she had to deal with numerous setbacks. These included such things as my father suffering a heart attack and going on to have a triple by-pass, she herself went through an emergency surgery, which sat her a semester behind, and her father also suffered a heart attack. Mom not only dealt with these setbacks but she had the everyday task of things like cooking dinner, cleaning the house and raising a family. I don’t know how she managed it all, but somehow she did.