This is my views as someone who has a family member with cancer as well as my own mental health issues.

This is hard for me to write without feeling selfish and maybe that is part of the problem. When a family member has cancer they become your focus, rightly so. But it can become all encompassing. Their needs are your first thought. Their appointments fill your calendar. This is what cancer causes. But this means that at times your own health and wellbeing takes a backseat.

I had a psychiatrist appointment a couple of weeks ago and when asked how I was I ended up talking about my mum. He stopped me and said "but how are you?" and that made me realise I hadn't actually talked about me in my own appointment and I'd been doing this in previous appointments too. He then told me that I needed to still focus on my own health and looking after myself.

The thought of looking after my health, especially my mental health, with all that's been going on with mum has felt alien. I know her time is limited so I've been determined she gets to enjoy her time where possible away from treatment. This means I've pushed myself a lot. This has meant I have been struggling. And I've been very tired and stressed.

Tired and stressed are two things that can lead to a decline in my mental health and that has been happening. It's no one's fault apart from maybe my own. It's just the nature of cancer. And my mental health has been slipping. Little things that are signs of things going downhill, I have been pushing to the side. But I think they did appear to my psychiatrist and causing his comments to look after myself and to suggest I need more support. So we will see where that goes.

So I think that's a lesson for anyone who is living with or looking after someone with cancer. We still need to look after our health in all aspects. It's not easy with the chaos that cancer brings into our lives but something maybe we need to make time for and not feel selfish about as at the end of the day it means we can care better for the person with cancer.

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