| I'm so, so sorry. I lost my mother to a different but similar terminal illness several years ago and I know how hard this is. It took her about ~4 years to die after the diagnosis and I'll share what I learned. One of the ways this can be made worse is if you stop engaging in sufficient self care. Make sure you continue to get some exercise, bath daily, stay hydrated, eat good food, get enough sleep, and stand in the sun every day (in many ways humans are just more complicated house plants). This won't make everything better, but not doing it can get you depressed quite quickly. You should first accept that your work output is probably just going to lower and forgive yourself for it. Ask for help with from friends, and if you can afford it consider buying help with some of the daily tasks and chores. It sounds like this is the first few days, in which case I'd guess this will be one of the low points of the experience. It probably won't always be this bad, but you should be prepared to feel this way several more times throughout the process. Try to understand the level of support you need during this time so you can ask for it again. If you can find someone who will lend you an ear outside of your family, talk to them about what you're going through. Talking through your emotions will help you process them and decrease how much they interfere with your day. Conversely, within the family you probably want to minimize conversation about your mother's illness and talk more about happier things. This won't always be possible, and your family members may need you to be their ear while they cope, but try to watch for conversations repeating themselves. People often get into grieving spirals where they rehash the same sad points over and over; engaging directly isn't helpful, you want to switch to talking about happier memories. It's not clear to me how good or bad your mother's diagnosis is, but if things turn for the worse I recommend you and your family read the article How Doctor's Die[0]. This informed my family on how we'd handle her treatment, deciding not to go for maximum intervention, and I'm so happy we did. Both for her, and for us. Best of luck, remember, this too shall pass. [0] https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-di... |