Have you ever lost a loved one to cancer? Well I have, I lost my grandma to breast cancer in 2012. She was only 64 when she passed away. I found that watching someone you love fight such a horrible disease makes you feel helpless. It makes you feel terrible when you see your loved one lying in a bed dying and there isn’t anything you can do to make it any better. When my grandma was 58 years old she went for a routine mammogram, while getting that done they found a lump in one of her breasts. She went in soon after finding the lump for a biopsy. Unfortunately the lump came back cancerous. For me and my family it was a very scary time. But for my grandma, she stayed very positive and optimistic, which made me a little hopeful. My grandma then went in and had a radical mastectomy. While she was in surgery the doctor checked her lymph nodes and found that it had already spread into the nodes under her arm. They did remove some of her lymph nodes in hopes that they could keep it from spreading throughout her system. The surgery seemed like it took a long time but really only took a few hours. We were all so worried about if she would make it through surgery and how she would feel after. Grandma had to stay in the hospital for three days recovering from surgery. She was in severe pain so they kept her on medication to help her cope with the pain. The medication she was on made her drowsy and sometimes really funny. She was all bandaged up and had a drain tube for any
Every day, my mom would drive to the hospital, and get her radiation in the mornings. As this went on for about two weeks, the doctors were very sweet. They helped my mom in so many ways, we are thankful to have them help my mom.
My mom instantly went through four intense chemotherapy treatments. I would miss class, school events, and visits with friends to sit with her through her three-hour chemotherapy sessions. When we came home from therapy, she would sleep a lot, and I was sure to be there by her side through it all.
When my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, we were all very sad, but she believed that she could win. There are five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She never got to the stage of acceptance because she knew she was strong enough to fight this rigorous battle. Although she knew the cancer was inside of her, she never let it change her life. She always looked on the bright side of things and saw this illness as an opportunity to live life to the fullest and be with family more. Being optimistic makes her a hero because thinking on the bright side gave her a positive attitude and gave her the strength to fight against
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood” –Marie Curie. Every year people are affected by cancer. Living with cancer is hard on all involved with any person that has cancer. They will need all the support they can get even if it’s just a phone call to say hi. Don’t feel sorry or pity the person. Instead do things that can cheer them up asking how they’re doing and ask if you can do anything for them. Many find going to support groups helpful to accept the fact they have or lost someone to cancer. The awareness does show favoritism toward to
When she died five years after first symptoms ,the cancer had spread throughout her body over those five years. My mother was very depressed
In October of 2016, my grandma passed away from a hard battle with cancer. My grandma was my rock, the person who always pushed me to be better, the person who was always encouraging me to keep going, and the person who inspired me the most. During the battle, I experienced a lot of adversity. Whether it was school or cross country meets, that feeling never seemed to go away.
In 2005 my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, just like Gus, but for her it was for the first time, not a recurrence. When my grandmother had breast cancer, had was 61 years-old. She started to think she had cancer when she saw a weird lump on her skin. Worried, she hurried to her doctor and asked her doctor about it. Her doctor performed a biopsy, a test that determines whether her skin on her breast had cancerous cells, on a section of her skin where she suspected cancer. The test came back positive and she had breast cancer. In the following months her body was bombarded by multiple rounds of chemotherapy every week. During chemotherapy she began to act just like Gus did when he had
I realized that and I knew there wasn’t something right about it. My family and I began to take her to doctor’s visits, check-ups and many appointments of Chemotherapy. I remember how anxious I was while we waited in the waiting room for her until her treatment was done, but this one time a nurse had called me during one of her treatments and told me my grandma was asking for me. I was unsure of the reason she was asking for me, but I knew it had to be something important. When I entered the Chemotherapy room it made me realize what cancer is and what it does. There was all these chairs, a person sitting on every one of them, with needles in their veins, and the little bag with the medicine that was connected to a tube slowly entering the patients. More than half of the people were hairless, or had bald spots. Being shocked by everything around you your instinct was to want to stare at everything, but then you realize this isn’t something to stare at. I saw and felt their pain that was in their eyes, I saw the emotions of longing to be healthy again and not having to sit in a chair waiting for the treatment to be over with. It really is the hardest thing to see, and to see your own family member going through that, is even
For my mom, the last six months has been a fierce battle against cancer which was discovered in her breast. First there was the mastectomy to remove the tumorous breast and then the chemotherapy
Cancer is one of the top leading causes of terminal illness and death, and it takes the support of family and friends to help overcome many of the feelings that can occur before, during, and after a diagnosis. It is often difficult to understand how to cope with the feelings associated with losing people that you love and care about and watching other people that are affected suffer emotionally along with the ailing family member or friends. Emotional challenges are faced regarding what can be done to help the patient, family, and friends handle personal emotions throughout the duration of the illness and the stages of grief. A person that is dealing with a terminal illness, a family member, or friend must find a way to effectively handle and overcome the devastating feelings associated with having a loved one being diagnosed or passing away after a long terminal illness. There are different stages of grief and options available for any negative feelings associated with handling the illness and acknowledging the anticipated loss of a loved one. The grieving and coping process involves behavioral and emotional reactions, like shock and sadness, and then acceptance and understanding while working towards healing or rebuilding life.
My grandmother never really felt like herself for about a year and a half, but every time she called her doctor they would call her in prescription drugs to take and they would hope that it would work. Over time the medicine did not work so my grandmother ended up having to go to the hospital because she had lost nearly sixty pounds. After the doctors ran a bunch of tests, they found out that the weight loss happened because of diabetes. Later that day, the doctors came back saying that she not only had diabetes, but they also diagnosed her with lung cancer. Considering all the weight that she had lost, the doctor could not do much for her lung cancer. They said that if she had not lost that much weight,
My mother decided to go forward with one of the only option, a double mastectomy. My mother's surgery went well and for a while was cancer free. Being faced with this situation made me realize that adulthood is about stepping up when you're needed. It's not always
My dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer in early 2014. It was a hard year for my family, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Not even in my worst dreams did I ever see my dad having cancer. The man that I looked up to, and loved to pieces had cancer. I was devastated, I remember crying and being afraid that I was going to lose him to an incurable disease that lurked the lives of many.
The loss of a loved one is a very crucial time where an individual can experience depression, somatic symptoms, grief, and sadness. What will be discussed throughout this paper is what the bereavement role is and its duration, as well as the definition of disenfranchised grief and who experiences this type of grief. I will also touch upon the four tasks of mourning and how each bereaved individual must accomplish all four tasks before mourning can be finalized. Lastly, with each of these topics, nursing implications will be outlined on how to care for bereaved individuals and their families.
The results came in confirming a malignant tumor in my mother’s breast, and I knew her hopes had been crushed, but she remained strong. After the surgery, another biopsy established that the cancer was found on the outside of her tumor and also in her lymph nodes, so it was very possible that it could spread. She would need to get a mastectomy.