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Are you fun to talk to? Do you nag? Do you talk about your illness a lot? Are you depressed?
The answer to all of these is yes I think so, no, no, and some on the last one--I do get depressed sometimes and a lot of that is that I'm having a hard time dealing with the empty nest situation and I'm very isolated socially where I live. The only real family I have left is my girls and my brother and I don't hear from him hardly at all--he's so busy flying all over the world.
Anyway, I don't owe anyone an explanation for why I chose holistic but I will offer this--after my mother died I found a picture of my aunt on her deathbed with breast cancer--they had caught it fairly early but she had to have chemo after the lumpectomy and she had a reaction to the chemo that physically burned her from the inside out and she had third degree burns all over the trunk of her body--she was so miserable she was begging to die. My girls know this. Also, I have a cousin who had an inoperable brain tumor so he had no choice but to get holistic therapy. 20 years later he is alive and well, though he still has a tumor in his brain--it just hasn't grown. Neither has mine and it has even shrunk some. This is just a small taste of what went into my choices, but it's part of what influenced me, as well was my girls' underwhelming concern for my health--I would never tell them this however.
Reading all of these replies has helped me realize that she's on the normal end of the spectrum--I really was beginning to think she's shut me out but I think it's a part of who she is.
I think it's incredibly selfish you are choosing to "treat" your cancer holistically, unless there is some legitimate reason for that you haven't shared. Maybe you are a narcissist and your adult daughter is distancing herself from you for her own mental health.
ETA: just saw your explanation above. Chemo has come a long way since your aunt suffered like that. I'm sorry you are sick but you are essentially choosing to abandon your children.
I cant believe, with how irritated you are with you, that you dont cop some attitude with her when you do talk to her. Even if you are just saying, why dont you call me more? why dont you answer your texts? is enough to make her want to blow you off when you text her.
You can't make her talk or text you. The more you nag her, the less you'll hear from her. Live your own life, let her live hers, text her something nice and friendly once in a while. If she doesnt answer back, just leave her be.
All people's other reasonable suggestions aside...some people just don't live on their phones. Even if a person carries a smartphone, it often gets more use as a clock/web browser/calculator/etc. than as a phone.
It kind of seems like you're making contradictory statements about the cancer. If the tumor is shrinking and your psuedomedicine is working and everything is fine and you expect to live a full life, then why is it a transgression for your daughter not to be making much of the disease? If you've assured her everything is fine and she believes you, maybe she quite reasonably doesn't feel any urgency. But if the outlook is not really as rosy as the picture you're painting, and that's why you're upset that the kids aren't making more of it, maybe that's something you need to come to terms with yourself...the first step to having an honest conversation with others about it is to be honest with yourself. It's entirely understandable and normal for you to have contradictory feelings, but I would suggest being cautious about projecting those onto your relationship with your kid.
If my mother was acting like a nutter huffing herbs and holding crystals thinking it could treat a form of cancer that has a nearly 100% cure rate I'd probably distance myself too. Do you find a lot of other people in life distancing and ignoring you too? As my father used to always say (far less politely than I will now) "If one person has a problem with you, they're probably the jerk. If everyone has a problem with you, you're probably the jerk."
OP, I think your choice of treatment for your cancer is a major factor in why your daughter does not contact you. The way I would think she sees it, you are choosing to die and leave her voluntarily. .
Agree 100%. And as you can see from responses to your treatment method, she probably feels that you are lying about any success.
Oh, come on, you and all the others talking like this. This is standard late teen/young adult behavior. Parents who don't have these issues have kids who don't call. Among my closest friends,my brother and me, we all have at least one kid who doesn't communicate frequently, even if the other(s) do. None of us has a terminal illness.
Quit blaming this mom. She wants to communicate with her daughter. I am a registered nurse and very skeptical of alt med, but I don't think that's the issue here.
I don't think it's the issue either. The vast majority, if not all of us who had kids away to school, have had at least one kid who rarely kept in touch with home. It's normal, if not welcome behavior.
The OP never asked for anybody's opinion on her choice to forgo chemo. And, she said she's doing well in spite of it. Leave it alone people.
I don't think it's the issue either. The vast majority, if not all of us who had kids away to school, have had at least one kid who rarely kept in touch with home. It's normal, if not welcome behavior.
The OP never asked for anybody's opinion on her choice to forgo chemo. And, she said she's doing well in spite of it. Leave it alone people.
^^^Yep, repped for truth.
I have a wide spectrum of communication from my grown children. One calls and/or texts multiple times a week, just checking in and sharing what's going on. Another calls/texts or stops by every couple of weeks. If I text either one of these 2 first, a response is pretty much guaranteed within 12 hours (but if it takes longer, I don't worry.) The third calls/texts once a month or so. If I text first, I may hear back within a week or 2 or 3. He communicates just as sporadically with his brothers. I know he has a career which commands much of his time and attention, however. Whatever precious spare time he has is devoted to his girlfriend. I am ok with that! He is healthy and happy. I take the approach of "no news is good news".
Heck, I look to my own communication with my dad...a month or more can go by before I realize I have not called him in a while! Again, no news is good news.
We've known about my illness for 2-1/2 years. Both girls had the attitude that I could just go to the doctor and get it fixed.
My son talks to me all the time; would share details of his life openly; what's he upset about, etc. My daughter - hardly ever.
However, as she has grown into adulthood and out of the "it's only about me" college life, she will call ME!
I also have to laugh to myself a little:
A couple of years ago, actually, it was Christmas 2013 and she was like "Oh Mom and Dad - all my friend's parents are buying condos on the beach or in NYC so you should sell the house and do this; I mean, you're old and you don't need a house (we have 3 dogs) and we love our home but....this really hurt us; thought of our home as a future family gathering place.
So, now, she has matured, lived in NYC until recently - now NJ. She is now looking to buy a home and had a contract on one (supposed to close but oil tanks leaking under home-deal cancelled by seller) and now another one (older woman probably around a bit older - lived there 41 years - she put it up for sale at her children's urging); everything going along fine and all of a sudden, seller cancels b/c she really doesn't want to sell (loves her home, etc).
All of a sudden, my daughter saw it from another person's viewpoint and e-mailed me and said "I guess this is why you and Daddy got so defensive; I'm really sorry....)
So, I think she is not thinking - plus she really worries about your health and you calling reminds her (not that she is forgetting) but this age doesn't do negative things well. My daughter used to say she I thought I came through as negative, therefore, avoidance of phone calls since she just wanted to have fun, fun, fun. She did love college, did all the things I always wanted to do, etc.
Just don't call her for a while and she'll come around.
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Went through this with my daughter at one point
