Can anyone recommend a good book for an adult whose mother has cancer?
My cousin is 38 years old and her mother has been given only a few months to live. Her one sibling passed away, so she is technically an only child now. She has not had a good relationship
with her mother who has suffered from addiction to prescription drugs over the years. My cousin, however, has been a stellar mom
to her own three children and a great wife.
Anyway, now she is faced with caring for her mother and going through conflicting feelings. She does love her mother and has
been attempting to heal the chasm between them through talking
and forgiveness. Her mother does not want to even muster the
energy to fight which is very hard for my cousin. It is doubly hard
because her mother is only 58.
Can anyone recommend a book for women whose mothers or parents are dying of cancer? There are a lot of books AFTER the
death, but could not find anything about coping with a dying parent
(except for children).
Any book recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much.
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6 Answers
Someone gave me a copy of Getting Well Again when my father was dying of cancer. I read it and then sent copies to my siblings.
Most of it was addressed to the patient. I read it all because I wanted to get the patient’s point of view. Suggestions involved things like visualization and affirmation. There was a lot about it that I personally thought was useless hocus-pocus. I never offered it to my father for various reasons.
But the chapter on family support was valuable and changed my way of thinking. It talked about how not to take a babying or a rescuing attitude toward the patient. I needed that.
For a sample, search on the word “rescue” in the Amazon copy. You can’t see the whole chapter, but you’ll get a taste.
Yes the Bible? I believe there a few motivating verses in it…
I can’t think of any books in response to your particular question, but I do have another observation. What does your friend think her mother should do to “fight” the disease? I’ve often wondered about the way people describe their and others’ attempts to survive disease or otherwise “just live”.
What I mean is, our bodies have ways of fighting disease, which really does come down to a sort of cellular level combat. So the metaphor is apt… at the cellular level. But how, exactly, does one “fight” a disease like cancer? Sometimes the attempted treatments, especially chemotherapy, affect the patients more obviously than the disease itself. I can understand why some people may choose to say “enough; I quit” and thereby appear to surrender to the disease, but it seems unfair to me to judge those people as… what? ... insufficiently motivated? quitters? weak? ... because they choose to accept the disease over the uncertain attempt to cure treat that hurts them every time they undergo it.
Maybe a better conversation between your friend and her mother would involve a discussion (the mother discussing, and the daughter asking questions and really listening to the responses, and not judging) regarding “What does it mean to ‘fight’ cancer?”
The Shack is a Christian novel. It is good and it’s not about losing a parent but it is about losing a child and grief and it may be of some help if that’s what you’re looking for.
There is also, if you do not want to go the christian route, another great book called Tuesdays with Morrie.
I don’t have a book recommendation, but have you seen the Showtime series The Big C(TV_series)?
I think it gives a sensitive and realistic insight into what happens in the minds of people diagnosed with terminal cancer as well as how their loved-ones cope.
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