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Blogger Lisa Lynch and her parents tell Viv Groskop how her breast cancer changed their adult-child relationship
By Viv Groskop
Saturday 5 June 2010
“At the clinic someone said, ‘It’s good that your parents are around you. Long may it continue.’ When I heard that I just knew.” Lisa Lynch is remembering waiting for the results of her initial tests for breast cancer. Her husband – and her parents – were waiting with her.
A diagnosis of invasive breast cancer at the age of 28 is devastating. But is it any less painful for the parents of an adult child to have to cope with this news? “I felt guilty that it wasn’t me,” says Lisa’s mother, Jane. “Why was Lisa picked and not me? It seemed so unfair. Just because your child has grown up and left home, it doesn’t mean they are not your child. If your child is ill you do everything for them.” Her father Ian adds: “As a parent you feel totally helpless.”
Lisa’s illness marked the beginning of a two-year journey for her family. They lived in each other’s pockets for weeks on end during her treatment, their roles frequently reversing. Sometimes, Lisa treated her parents like children, nursing them through their grief over her illness. Sometimes she was reduced to being a child herself, as her mother cared for her during the worst of her chemotherapy…Continue reading
