Hi CArol,

I just finished helping a relative with completing his IMRT two months ago; he had oral tongue cancer.

Unless your daughter has appointed you to be the decision maker for her care, try to approach each discussion with a very very careful plan of only the critical stuff, so as to not overwhelm her. Instead focus on being a person she can trust. AT the same time, I know you will not sleep a wink if you haven't done everything you can to know about her treatment, so do what you can and leave the rest up to god.

After just seeing my father in law go through his treatment in India which included surgery, IMRT and Erbitux, I can tell you that the main thing is during his down time, he needed to find his healing zone, a no stress, no pressure zone in which he was allowed to feel crappy. He eventually got ot a point where he didn't feel like being cheerful for a while. BUt I kept assuring him he would get better, and I was very very blessed to have his trust in my words. I knew more about his condition than he did, and he knew I was dedicated to his treatment, so he trusted me.

This is ironic, but I don't know if I could have handled things so well for my own father, merely because he is my blood, simply handling the emotional aspects of my own father with cancer probably would have zapped me too much to be the strength I was for my father in law. Be kind to yourself and don't ignore your own needs through this. If you have friends and other more distant relatives who can help in any way, now is the time to IMPOSE on them. This is what we are social beings for, is for times like these.

All the best and god bless you and your family,
TAsha