Losing my Mum to Cancer

In 2007 my mum was diagnosed with uterine cancer. What a shock.

Suddenly my life was thrown into turmoil, this kind, generous, loving, caring, understanding lady that I called mum had a life threatening disease and I couldn't stop it. She had a hysterectomy, had radiotherapy and then started chemotherapy. Of course she lost her hair and was very poorly but she never moaned, she went through all that and was still kind, generous, loving, caring and understanding. She was still my mum.

She was given the all clear in October 2008 which was wonderful news but then she had a fall in the field with her horse. Her face was bruised, it was horrible. She started forgetting words and saying funny things so we persuaded her to go to the doctor who said it was probably a bit of concussion but to have a scan.

The scan revealed half a dozen secondary brain tumours. All tumours were inoperable, no treatment to cure her but they did a course of radiotherapy to try and shrink the tumours and she was put on strong steriods. The doctor said she only had "months" to live. The shocking news came on Christmas Eve.

I'll never forget Christmas 2008, mum was so drugged up on anti-depressants that she was so cheerful but it was very false to what we were all feeling inside. Between Christmas and when mum eventually died in April was a terrible time for us all.

The emotions were unexplainable. It didn't sink in for ages, in fact it still hasn't sunk in that she's gone. My mum was a very intelligent, independent wonderful lady and cancer made her into a paranoid, aggressive person that I didn't recognise at times.

Her actual death is too traumatic for me to blog about at this time, maybe one day I may feel able to tell you what happened but not today.

January 2009 I decided to give up smoking for mum. She hated me smoking so I thought I'd do this for her, for her to die knowing I'd finally given up the weed and of course the weight piled back on. I tried to diet for a bit during this time but when mum died I just couldn't do it and more weight piled on. When I jumped on the scales and I was 16 stone 3 pounds that was it for me. Out came the WW meals (duh) and I dieted and dieted and ..... no weight loss.

I went to the dr and showed her my food diary. She couldnt understand why I wasn't losing weight. I had blood tests. All came back clear (good in some ways but bad in others - why wasn't I losing weight?) I was running for 20 mins (yes me, running) on the treadmill, 5 times a week and I still wasn't losing weight so I enlisted the help of a dietician.