My husband and I just sold our house and have bought a house down south, that has been our dream as soon as we both retired. My parents are in their early 80’s and I knew they were not happy about it. They have their health issues, but, I didn’t think anytime terminal. I told them we were not abandoning them, my brother lives across the street from them and we planned on coming home every 6-8 weeks to visit. Well my mom dropped a bombshell on us last week, she has a lump on her breast which she has been hiding for 2 months and only told us now because she has had back pain for a couple of weeks and had been resisting going to the drs. She goes for a biopsy tomorrow and next week we will find out how advanced the cancer is. She also said she didn’t tell us because we were moving and everything was in disarray. I feel so guilty about the whole thing. Now, it looks like my husband will be going south by himself for awhile and I will be staying here to help my mother. I can’t stop worrying and crying. I feel like this is such a bad dream.
Until your mom gets the results of her biopsy, you don't know if you are looking at a cancer diagnosis.
Has your mother been getting mammograms every year? If she stopped, was that because she had decided that even if she had breast cancer, she would opt for palliative care rather than treatment?
Don't get ahead of yourself. Take this one day at a time and stop the guilt! You've done nothing wrong.