Coping with the possibilities of having cancer!

How am I supposed to cope with this?
There are so many things that you can do in order to cope with the fact that your mum has been diagnosed with cancer. Below are some suggestions about what might help you to cope. Try these out, or talk to your friends and family about new ideas you have. Email us about what works for you.

* Look after your own health - maybe go to bed a little bit earlier and try to eat a healthy diet. When your body is under emotional stress, it can also be under extra physical stress too. If you are not feeling well, see your doctor or talk to another adult who can help you.
* Give yourself time to adjust and understand what is happening - don’t expect that you should be able to deal with this straight away. Some people take years to work through their emotions, you have a head start because you are reading this website. Keep reading, exploring your feelings and talking to other people and it will slowly start to make sense.
* Express your feelings - be prepared to talk about the tough stuff, otherwise you might start to think your feelings don’t matter.
* Get information - find out as much as you feel you need in order to understand what is happening to your mum. Some people prefer not to know the detail. Others like to learn everything. It is totally up to you.
* Keep a diary - write down all of your thoughts and feelings each day. Look back over your notes and see how far you have come since you first found out about your mum.
* Do some exercise - swim, ride, beach, surf, walk, run, play a sport at school etc. It is amazing how good you will feel after you get some of your negative energy out and forget about life for a little while.
* Get creative - write a story, play some music, draw a picture, design a new computer game etc.
* Connect with other young people who have coped with cancer in their family. Feeling alone is one of the worst things, but you are not the only one. You don’t always have to talk about the cancer with them, but just having fun with someone who knows what it’s all about can be such a relief.
* Spend time with your friends. It might just be hanging out, going to a movie or listening to music. It’s good to do something that feels ‘normal’ when everything around you is changing.
* Let yourself be sad. Being sad won’t make it worse, and most times people who bottle up their feelings get stressed out later on anyway. Sometimes you can feel that if you start to cry you will never stop. That’s OK. You won’t feel this sad forever. You just won’t.
* Have some fun. Having fun doesn’t mean that you are selfish or don’t care about your mum. It is a way of building up some supplies of good things inside to help you get through the tough times. It will also make her feel better to see you enjoying yourself.
* Keep going to school, doing the things you used to do where possible. Working hard at school can be a way of having a break from thinking about the cancer, and when you do well, it makes you feel more confident that you really will be able to handle things.
* Find your own way of coping - even if it seems strange. Some people write on little bits of paper about what is really getting to them. Then they fold up that piece of paper and put it in a special little box called a worry box. Other people just go somewhere private or outdoors and yell and scream and shout until they feel better!
* Work out what used to relax you - it might have been listening to music, going to the beach, going to the movies, whatever it is - try it again. It will usually make you feel much better.
* Sometimes it might seem like a good idea to drink away your problems or take drugs to forget about things for a while. Sometimes drinking and taking drugs can seem a release from all the stress, but they lead to health problems themselves and that then just adds to all the drama you’re already dealing with. It just doesn’t work. You have to work through the tough stuff before you can feel better.

Source: http://www.myparentscancer.com.au/cope.html