Standing Alone: The Pain of Family Not Showing Up

When I received my diagnosis of stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, I was devastated. I remember sitting in the doctor's office, the weight of those words sinking in, and thinking how much I would need my family during this time. I've always had my husband by my side, and he still is.

At the very beginning, my older sister came to stay with us for a couple of weeks to help out. But then she left. My mom visited occasionally, and so did my younger sister with her 2 kids. But after a while, it felt like my cancer became old news.

Family support didn't meet my expectations

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, the support I expected never really came. Instead, I found myself navigating this journey without my mom or sisters by my side in the way I had hoped. They were present initially, but as time passed, their involvement seemed to fade.

I don't know what happened—maybe they thought I had things under control, or perhaps it was too hard for them to confront my illness head-on. But whatever the reason, the closeness I anticipated during this time just wasn't there.

Moving closer to family

3 years ago, my husband and I moved back to Oregon to be closer to my family. We bought a home on my mom's property, and I thought being nearby would naturally lead to more support. I've always been pretty close to my family, and I figured that if I were closer to them physically, they'd be more involved in my cancer journey.

Maybe I was selfish to expect that, but I couldn't help but hope. However, what I've experienced over the past 3 years differs from what you see in movies or hear about in other people's lives. Instead of deep emotional or physical support, it's been more like casual check-ins, asking me, "How's it goin'?"

My vulnerability is met with emotional distance

I tried to open up once to one of my nieces, and I even started crying. I was vulnerable, hoping for connection, but she told me she wasn't comfortable talking about my life because she had no experience to share with me. That hurt.

Some years back, my husband and I hired a filmmaker, and we created a documentary about my life and story with cancer. To my surprise, it has won a bunch of awards at film festivals around the country, and it's on Amazon and Tubi TV now. It's called A Brave Hope. But my older sister still has never seen it because she said, "It's too hard for me to watch that." Try living it.

I don't expect anyone to fully understand what it's like to have cancer but to be told outright that my reality was too uncomfortable to talk about made me feel even more alone.

Alone in the daily moments of metastatic breast cancer

The best support I've gotten from my family seems to happen only when something major happens. For example, a couple of years ago, I had a craniotomy to remove what the doctors thought were lesions. After the surgery, I started having seizures. To stop them, the doctors put me into a medically induced coma for a few days. When I finally woke up after 2 weeks, I was out of the ICU, and that's when my family rallied.

They called, texted, and posted on Facebook. It was a big event, so at that moment, they showed up. But I'm often left walking this road without my family in the day-to-day battle, the smaller moments.

Remission doesn't mean this is over

For the past year and a half, I've been in near-complete remission. But even though I'm in remission, I still have treatments every 3 weeks. I deal with side effects—pain, neuropathy, and negative thoughts. I still have to go through scans like brain MRIs, PET scans, echocardiograms, blood work, and everything else that comes with being a cancer patient.

Remission doesn't mean it's over. It just means the fight looks a little different.

Lack of understanding

One of the hardest parts is that my family seems to view me through the lens of my cancer. My younger sister won't let me watch her kids because she thinks it would be too much for me. She doesn't understand that being around them would actually lift me up. Instead, she worries, and that hurts more than I can express. I miss being the aunt I used to be and her, my best friend.

Finding my strength in unexpected places

Through all this, my family has shown me how to stand at a distance—how to politely walk alongside me without really being in it. It's a strange feeling to have them physically here but not truly here for how I need them.

While my family's lack of support has been painful, it's also reminded me of something important: I have an inner strength, and it's always been there. I draw that strength from God, my husband, and friends who have stepped up in ways I didn't expect. Cancer may have stripped away the illusion of support I thought I'd get from my family, but it has shown me who truly stands beside me.

A message to caregivers

If this journey has taught me anything, it's that sometimes real love and support come from places and people you least expect. And that, ultimately, I will survive this.

If you're a caregiver or family member reading this, remember that cancer changes your loved one in many ways, but your relationship doesn't have to change for the worse. Stand beside them. Your presence matters more than you think.