u/Ok_Honey_1755

Hi All

My mom has stage 4 lung cancer w mets to brain, adrenals, stomach, bones. We are over a year into treatments now including an emergency brain surgery and she's still giving'er. (Giving'er looks a lot different now, but she's in good spirits most of the time!)

At the beginning she was in hospital and deteriorated really quickly and it was extremely scary and felt hopeless. I was there every single day, it was easier because the hospital is in my city. When she went back home (45 min commute from city) I saw her multiple times a week. As her condition improved and stabilized I now see her every weekend. Occasionally I will miss a weekend because of errands or other commitments. My husband and I both work full time during the week. My mom lives with my Dad who is her primary caregiver now, and my big brother. My aunt comes down every other week to take over care for a few days too. My mom is our best friend. 😭

I did not see her this past weekend because we were visiting my husband's family. Yesterday I told my mom I would come see her today because I had a random Tuesday with no work scheduled (I'm a house cleaner). She said yay!.

Yesterday at work though I started coughing and getting a runny nose. We were doing a post construction clean with a ton of dust so I told myself I'm not getting sick.

The runny nose has persisted though and this morning I am blowing it consistently. My husband also informed me that his unit at work (he's a nurse) is on outbreak. I don't know if it's for covid or some other illness but they are on outbreak protocol. My husband does not currently feel sick or have sniffles and is religious about his PPE. I don't feel overly sick and I do get allergies but I'm scared! My mom's last chemo was last Thursday, and I know we need to be extra careful.

I want to see her so badly and I'm so scared about missing limited time and I don't want her to be sad. I struggle with pretty significant moral OCD that I take medication for but obviously this whole past year has been difficult for instrusive thoughts. I know for a fact that I am sniffling and blowing my nose since yesterday. My brain agonizes over thoughts of "what if this is the last chance to see her?" And "what if you aren't really sick?" Even "what if you are faking it?". And I know OCD. Im an old hat at this now, but this is my mom, and so I'm not just fighting with illogical OCD guilt but I'm also fighting with just being a daughter who wants her mom because mom makes things better.

I also feel like I get the sniffles all of the time now and sometimes I have been over cautious and skipped a visit just to end up not getting sick anyway. Which makes me feel horrible and I tend to spiral from the anxiety of not having seen her for the entire week until the next visit.

I am going to text her and let her know that I'm not feeling well this morning and she will undoubtedly tell me to stay home and come on the weekend and we will say love yous and tell eachother everything is okay.

But how do you deal with feelings of not being there enough? & Does anyone else feel like they get sick twice as much now that there's someone you cannot be sick around?

All of this is so hard.

My mom has terminal cancer and I'm scared. Nothing religious please.

Venting about a conversation I had with a coworker earlier...

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My job has us in a truck together for extended periods of time, so we get carried away yapping & he listens to Dean Withers podcasts a lot, for context lol. I don't remember exactly how we got on this topic.

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I said I did not like how normalized casual objectification of women is amongst men and how I believe predatory behavior is perpetuated by what we allow in our private conversations; Amongst friends, in the locker room, in our group chats (or yapping with coworkers!) etc.

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He said objectification is just human nature. He said everyone has thoughts about people and women do it too.

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I said attraction and having thoughts may be human nature but objectification like I was describing is a harmful act one engages in. I said yes women do it too and I wasn't okay with it when anyone does it. I said I wished we'd hold eachother accountable more often and that maybe if we did it would not he so normalized. 

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He said you try being the one in the group that says something, you'll get beat up. He said he'd been there before and tried it and it doesn't change anything. He reiterated that it's just natural behavior and there was nothing one can do to stop it from happening. 

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I said that made me sad. That one guy standing up to his buddies one time won't fix everything, but calling it a natural behavior felt like a cop out. I said having thoughts does not mean you need to act or speak on them. I said there are so many things that could come "naturally" to someone that are harmful and shouldn't be acted upon. 

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He said that sounds like people who say "being gay is natural, just don't do it infront of them".  

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I said those people are homophobic and don't want to see someone because that someone is gay. I'm talking about not allowing a harmful behavior to continue. 

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This brought us back around to it just being human nature, and you're not "allowing" anything, it just is going to happen and so you cannot fault people for it. He went on later to say he did not like when teenage girls wore "adult" clothing, because what if he wanted to look at/say something to them but he can't tell if they are adults and risks being an accidental pdf. He said this when he saw a girl dressed for summer walking down the street. I said I had no idea, I mostly just think "cute outfit" if anything at all when I see people and move on...

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This whole conversation left me feeling so defeated and disturbed. We generally understand eachother and have had some heartfelt talks about related subjects, especially given the podcasts he listens to? I was feeling like I had maybe made a new friend, but I no longer want to sit in the work truck with him.

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I think about what he said about being the one to say something and getting beat up. To me, him saying his initial reaction was to say something means his "natural" response was discomfort, that the behavior was inappropriate. His friends punishing him for that is what taught him to stop speaking up. It probably taught other guys in the group who were also uncomfortable to just go along with it too. 

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To me that IS normalizing it, is it not? That's virtually training someone like a dog. 

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But he is right, you probably will get bullied for being the one that says anything. I don't know how to make things better, and it feels really hopeless to think that people are just like that? I don't want to be like that, it doesn't come naturally to me. & I don't want to live in a world where it's just "human nature" to worry about if the person you're objectifying on the street is a kid.

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