By Dawn Stilwell

This space on the website is usually where I write about someone else’s mental health story, but this month, I decided to share mine with you in the hopes of raising awareness about resources for grief that you may not know are available to you.

My youngest sister Jennifer was diagnosed a year and a half ago with stage IV inflammatory breast cancer.  This kind of breast cancer is the worst kind to get; the five-year survival rate is only 1 in five.  Jen went through months of chemo, a radical mastectomy and then months of radiation treatment, all from May to December last year. Unfortunately, despite enduring the pain and sickness that these treatments caused with the hope of some lasting remission, it bought her all of six good weeks before the cancer returned and began to affect her breathing.  At the time of this writing, she has been on palliative care for two months. She bravely decided that the side effects caused by her second round of chemo weren’t worth it, and ditched curative measures for comfort care. She will not be with us much longer. Update: Jennifer passed away on November 13, 2021.

Anticipatory grief is the grief you experience as you wait in expectation of a loss.  It’s not something I’d previously given much thought to.  And then one day, soon after my sister decided to receive palliative care only, that grief seemingly popped up out of nowhere and hit me pretty hard.  Although I am generally a very optimistic person, there was little room for hope with my sister’s decision, and facing that I would soon be without her in my life was difficult to accept.  The sadness was overwhelming, to say the least.  But my work here at No One Stands Alone gave me insight to the help available, and I decided to practice the very thing I’ve been advocating for here.  I reached out for help for my mental health.

Although my sister is in hospice care in Windsor, I contacted St. Joseph’s Hospice in Sarnia since that’s much closer to where I live.  I spoke with a lovely lady about what grief services they offered, and she told me that they had a grief counselor that I could see.  They offered a 90-minute intake session which would then be followed with up to 6 counseling sessions, at no cost to myself.  I signed up that day and had my intake session about 10 days later.

My counselor, M, offers a safe space to talk about my feelings and experiences, where I can honour those feelings and explore them in a nonjudgmental environment.  She immediately put me at ease and spoke kindly and gently and I found her easy to talk to and be open with.

Whatever support you need, M will do her best to provide it for you.  Your sessions can be spent talking, doing art therapy, crying, venting or she will even help you with tasks such as phoning the funeral home to make pre-arrangements for someone.  She reassures you that what you are feeling is normal and you’re not going crazy. She will give you tips and techniques to help you self-soothe when you feel overwhelmed.  She sometimes gives homework; a task you can complete before your next session that will help you to move forward on your grief journey.

M and I often have some very deep and philosophical discussions, but that’s because that has been what I’ve wanted at the time; M tells me she will follow my lead and that is what she does.  She stresses that this time is for ME.  Although I am very fortunate to already have a great support system in my husband, family and friends, this added level of support has been a godsend at a time in my life where it’s been hard some days to continue to function at my usual level because of the weight of my anticipated loss. But with all this support, I don’t feel alone and I am able to extend myself grace as I move through my days and the time of my sister’s passing grows near. All of my family is experiencing anticipatory grief to some degree, and receiving this counseling service from the hospice means I can lean a bit more lightly on them while they are hurting, too.

If you are experiencing grief, there is help for you! Not only through the hospice, but through other agencies as well.  Find out here on the website where you can get your free copy of our No One Stands Alone Guide to Resources and Support for Mental Health, or check out our other resources here on the website.

You are worth whatever it takes to support your mental health. You are not alone. If you need help, please reach out for it.

I am glad that I did.