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Sep. 28th, 2011 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Got an email from my mom. Her only brother, my uncle, my godfather, was recently diagnosed with cancer. Today, he tells her, they told him it is incurable.
I am sure the doctors did not use that word. I am sure they said "inoperable", as it is not only in his lungs, but also in his bones, and a few other places. I know enough about cancer to know what that means. It cannot be removed by an operation. That does not mean it is "incurable", simply that the prognosis is bad, and there is unlikely to be a good long-term outcome.
They gave him a year to live, and have prescribed him chemo. My mother, in some anguish but with her typical dryly pragmatic mode of self-expression, said she doesn't understand why they'd put him through the "torture of chemotherapy" if it's incurable.
He is about sixty, and suffers from depression, and alcoholism, and being a closeted homosexual for most of his life with an older partner who won't acknowledge him in public because men of his generation don't talk about such things, and being the little brother of my mother who I admit with love is an overachieving insensitive clod. (I have, let's just say, a lot in common with my uncle.)
And I don't really know what to feel. I really don't. I don't know what to do. I don't know what kind of help I can offer him, or my mother. I just don't know what to do. That's all, I don't have a witty closing phrase here.
I am sure the doctors did not use that word. I am sure they said "inoperable", as it is not only in his lungs, but also in his bones, and a few other places. I know enough about cancer to know what that means. It cannot be removed by an operation. That does not mean it is "incurable", simply that the prognosis is bad, and there is unlikely to be a good long-term outcome.
They gave him a year to live, and have prescribed him chemo. My mother, in some anguish but with her typical dryly pragmatic mode of self-expression, said she doesn't understand why they'd put him through the "torture of chemotherapy" if it's incurable.
He is about sixty, and suffers from depression, and alcoholism, and being a closeted homosexual for most of his life with an older partner who won't acknowledge him in public because men of his generation don't talk about such things, and being the little brother of my mother who I admit with love is an overachieving insensitive clod. (I have, let's just say, a lot in common with my uncle.)
And I don't really know what to feel. I really don't. I don't know what to do. I don't know what kind of help I can offer him, or my mother. I just don't know what to do. That's all, I don't have a witty closing phrase here.
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Date: 2011-09-29 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 11:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 02:52 pm (UTC)As far as your mom goes, just keep talking with her. She'll process this through her interactions with people she trusts. I doubt my mom would talk to me about her grief. That's a sweet connection you have.
And I'm here if you need to talk. My phone number is available to my friends on FB. :D
Lots of love,
Kel
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Date: 2011-09-29 07:05 pm (UTC)My mom is such a curmudgeon, I don't know how she'll react. They've never gotten along but she cares for him a lot. He accidentally pulled my hair at Thanksgiving a few years ago, forgetting that my mother no longer wears long blond braids, because for him, pulling her hair was such a reflex-- that's the kind of relationship they always had.
Aw, you're sweet. Thank you!
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Date: 2011-09-30 06:03 pm (UTC)Wishing good wishes for your uncle & you & your whole family.