Today I found out my mum has bowel cancer

Hi everyone, I’m writing this just to get all of my feeling off my chest and to maybe give people awareness if they feel like something isn’t right, more than anything. I do have lots of people to talk to but you know when you just feel like you’ll burden them? I don’t know, but here we go. This is the first time I’ve ever written on Reddit lol.

So my mum has been suffering for a while, in lots of pain and not being able to go to the bathroom to poo (sorry I don’t want to be too TMI) and it gradually got worse, to the point where she couldn’t sit down stairs because she was in too much pain and now she spends most of her time in bed on her side because it eases the pain just slightly. She has heat on it constantly to help it take the edge off. Meanwhile, the doctors weren’t giving her strong enough painkillers to help her.

She’s now barely eating because she’s too scared to go to the bathroom because of how much more pain she will be in, which has caused her to loose around 2-3 stone. She’s incredibly lethargic, sleeping most of the time and so weak. When she has been going to the bathroom, barely anything is coming out and she’s getting the worst cold sweat with it. She has been keeping bags in the toilet too because the pain has been that bad it has been making her be sick.It’s been so hard watching her go through this.

She recently had a few tests and they found an ulcer in her bowel so they sent her to surgery to get a biopsy of it and it has came back as cancer. Thankfully, they have said that it’s removable, but she will most likely have to do chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

She seems to be taking it well, more so for the fact that it’s not the unknown anymore.

I wish I could be there for her more but I find it so difficult as I (F26) am an army wife so I don’t live near her and I have a 6 month old son, also work part time and am starting uni in October. I just feel like I can’t be there for her as much as I should. I have an older brother, who is 30 and autistic, a younger sister, who is 15 and also autistic and a 14 year old sister. They don’t seem to show many emotions around it, I get it though. I visited for a few days and the house was a mess so I spent a while having a clean around so my mum didn’t have to do much. I had a conversation with the kids and basically said that they need to take their fingers out of their arse basically and help out, my sisters were good about it but my brother was like “no, it’s not my job. It’s the girls” and it really annoyed me, like I understand he’s autistic but can he do the dishes and maybe hoover? It’s not as if it’s normal circumstances, like our mum literally has cancer? I don’t know if that makes me a terrible person for thinking this?

My mum has been a single mum to us all and she has been the absolute best mum I could have ever asked for. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up but she always made sure we had everything we need, made every Christmas and birthday special and took us on a holiday every year, even if it meant she was in debt. But we never knew that. She broke her back for us in every single way possible to make sure we had the best life.

And to possibly loose her to the big, angry ‘C’.. it tears me apart. I can’t imagine ever living in a world that she is not in. She has been my constant, my best friends and the person to kick my arse whenever I have needed it.

I had an idea of taking her away for weekend, just us two. I’m not sure where or what we’ll do, just something to help her relax and her away from the four walls she is constantly staring at. If anyone in the UK has any recommendations that aren’t expensive, I would really appreciate it! I don’t have tons of money but I can save for something she’ll enjoy!!

Please, please, please if you have noticed something is wrong, even something you think will go away, please get it checked! It might be nothing but it might also save your life!

I’m sorry this is a long post, I’m just trying to get everything off my chest. Thank you for reading, I appreciate every single reader❤️