Struggling with mixed emotions after brother's B-ALL diagnosis (burnout and guilt)
Hey everyone
My brother (23M) was diagnosed with B-ALL almost a month ago now. When I got the call from my mom about his diagnosis, I put everything on hold to travel across country to help. I am a PhD student in biomedical sciences; stopped my experiments, and postponed my candidacy exam. In the first week and a half of my arrival my brother was very sick; couldn't stand, nausea, and sleeping most of the day. Thankfully he really started to improve once they started his chemotherapy. He started telling us he was feeling better than he had in 6 months, eating a lot, going for daily walks, planning his courses for undergrad, and making mathematical formulas to better play his video games. During this time, I was the designated person to get any meals my brother requested to supplement his hospital meals; pretty much everyday I would get whatever he requested to bring to him. I also managed chores at home because my mother is mentally ill, and cannot manage doing both visits to the hospital and regular daily tasks. I would also have to wake her up otherwise she would sleep till 4PM, then I would drive her to the hospital and back. I was also the mediator of any squabbles between my parents, them with my brother, or them with other family members. It was pretty exhausting.
I had been there for 3 weeks so I decided to book my flight back as the doctors were really happy with his progress, and I needed to return to my studies. I told him my brother a week before my flight that I had to return, and the only thing he said was "oh no, who will bring me my ice cream now". But a day before I was supposed to head back he had to be transferred to the ICU because of an infection in his central line. My mom was an emotional disaster, so I had to take her to the waiting room to calm her down, my dad was at home and didn't know what to do. My mom really wanted me to stay, and brought it up in front of my brother that she thinks I should stay longer until he's out of ICU. Now I understand he is in the ICU and probably frightened with what has just happened but he was still feeling pretty good. He replied to my mom and said "okay" and shrugged his shoulders, then went back to talking about his favorite engineering and physics principles.
Wake up the next day, and I am not feeling very well. My mom wanted to sleep at the hospital because it was my brother's first night in ICU, so I called her and the first thing she says to me is that he wants a specific Italian dish brought for him in a couple hours. I told her I couldn't come at all today because I was feeling unwell.
I am now having these very strong mixed emotions. I am at a point where I feel like I've reach my limit here, and I want to return to my PhD. I am starting to feel irritated by my brother's demands without any sort of "thank you". And then both of those thoughts make me feel guilty, because I understand he has cancer. Not sure if there's any advice to give but I just needed to vent a bit. Thank you!