When we found that my husband had colon cancer that had already progressed to his liver, our lives were put into a totally different mode. The next 13 months of living with this situation and the many, many doctoring requirements were a change in our future plans -- to say the least :new_shocked: . BUT you do have to make a choice at this point and ours was to live as normally as possible, as long as possible.
So, after his surgery and recovery from that, we made every attempt to DO SOMETHING every day of the life we had left. At first, as you can imagine, things were in the "shock mode", then the "darn it mode", then the "ok, let's not waste a day mode" and not until the very, very last month was it in the"don't want to see anyone but family mode".
Dick termed it this way, he'd had more good days than bad and wanted to try and live those well. He did.
When you see this woman, yes she is wanting to be treated as the same person she was.....so, say "hey, how ya doing?" Tell her you're glad to see her, etc. Share some of any past experience that you two may have had........"remember when...?" Memories are good.
Guess what I'm saying is that she KNOWS she's gotta do something every day. And, she WILL KNOW when she is at the point of not being able to. Often the hardest part is that people don't want to call you, see you because they "don't know what to say". Then the person who is already living a compromised life is cut off from friends. Just don't let that happen.
