Dear Judy,
My mom is suffering from advanced ovarian cancer and it appears that the chemo is not working.
She is a very independent person and a nurse by profession and she has completely taken charge of her own care. Over the past few months as the chemo has taken its toll, she has become increasingly withdrawn from our family and angry and will not let any of us in to her emotional life.
This is excruciating for me to stand by and feel so helpless, yet I know that she will only get angry if I try to address any of the emotional complications of her cancer.
My question, Judy: Should I respect the walls she has erected and leave her to handle the cancer in her own way? Or is there a point when she could lose her perspective and need a loving family member to help her cope?
Polly
Dear Polly,
I am so sorry about your mother. As a nurse, she knows that advanced ovarian cancer that isn’t responding to chemotherapy is deadly. And anger is an almost inevitable result of both that knowledge and the depleting chemo effects.
What I am trying to say is: please don’t take her anger personally. It may be coming your way, but it isn’t really you she’s angry at.
So – Yes, for now you have to respect the emotional walls she’s built. Right now your mother is torn. My best guess is she’s used to be a woman in charge: professionally able and competent at handling the demands of a career and a family life.
But now that she is really sick and enfeebled from chemo, she is none of the things she used to be.
What I’d suggest is that you come around and just be there for her, by her side. Ask if she would, say, like to watch a video with you — and which video she’d like you to rent. Ask if she would like — despite her nausea — to eat some special dish you know how to prepare.
Ask if she’s like to listen to whatever music she generally loves. Or if she’d like to read a book by an author she happens to like.
In other words — always ask. I think she might say yes to some of these ideas, because she’ll feel in charge. And she’ll be comfortable assuming the role she had when she was healthy.
As time goes by, and things get worse, I think she’ll confide in you much more, talk to you much more. And be far less angry. That’s what usually happens.
And take very good care of yourself as well. And let me know, if you wish and when you wish, how things are going.
Judy
How sad. Polly is about to lose her mother in body, but she really has already lost her. That mother is no longer the person Polly once knew.
Polly doesn’t mention if this kind of anger is a regular thing with her mother. Maybe she only lets it all out on her family because they’re the only ones she can vent at.
Is there a spiritual leader to whom the mother is or was close and who could talk to her about this?
Polly can try writing to her mother. Unlike face-to-face encounters, it does not demand an immediate reaction and will give the sick woman time to think — rather than reacting from the depth of her pain and misery. Myabe it won’t change anything. But there is some chance that it will increase communication, or at least clarify how much her daughter cares for her.