I have read a lot on this forum about the new normal post Tx.
This of course is applied to patients adjusting to the change in their lives that results from agressive surgery and radiation.
I wonder however, how many of you consider the new normal for caregivers?

For most of us our lives changes dramatically and sometimes forever,when someone we previously lived with on an equal footing is diagnosed with cancer.

Ordinary day to day existance is replaced with a schedule of treatment and care that leaves you breathless.The physical and mental strain of the day to day practicalities of the disease mean that life as you knew it ceases to be.This in turn can lead to isolation,and a feeling of being trapped in a world that only contains illness,hospitals,doctors,nurses,and talk of cancer.

It is all consuming ,and for most carers,a very emotional time as you helplessly watch someone you love going through treatment and pain you cannot begin to imagine,at the same time as juggling children,chores,work,housekeeping,hospital schedules,screening visitors,dispensing treatments and medication,dealing with practical problems and listening to emotional out pourings.

For us it is the only way we can help,and very quickly life takes on a whole new vista,that makes us feel involved,needed and useful.

As your loved one improves and the treatment comes to an end you suddenly realise that your life has been on hold for months,and as you are less needed and have less responsibilties a strange feeling of emptiness can creep in.The closeness you may have developed during your journey through cancer can be replaced with resentment because you are no longer relied on or indeed needed so much and your whole purpose can be in question.You feel exhausted,mentally drained often due to circumstances you even look a bloody mess as you have had no personal time for everyday things like eating regularly,going to the hairdressers or the gym or just getting out in the fresh air.
And for some of us there is nothing to show for it.

The new norm for the care giver can be confusing and lonely and every bit as devastating as it is for the sufferer,in an entirely different way.

And for the one left behind when all that commitment comes to nothing it is hell om earth.