My grandmother Dg. Klatskin tumor

Dear Lainy,

so true! Thank you for your kind words!

my best wishes,

SP

Dear all,
so many things happened during my long absence from this message board. We’ve had many bad moments, but also some happy ones. Our lives are changed forever.
My grandmother lost the battle with her illness in December 2011, after 2 long years of struggling, at the age of 86.
She never received any kind of ethiological therapy for her illness (surgery /chemo) so she was basically on palliative care from day one after her dg (she was given not more than 3-6 months to live back in 2010). However, she proved them all wrong!
She lived to see the birth of both of her grand granddaughters in January 2011;
she kept her mobility during almost the whole duration of her illness;
according to her wish, she received palliative care at her home, in her bed and she passed away quietly in her sleep.
May God bless her soul and may she forever rest in peace.

I wish all of you the best of luck: don’t ever give up hope!

SP

I was on a complete emotional rollercoaster this week….Even if I forget all the stress at work I’m having, only because my (so much desired) summer holiday’s speedily approaching (and my patients are dying to get all of their teeth fixed / their dentures/ bridges etc completed before that moment comes )…I can only say this week was pretty shocking for me…
The first shock was a positive one…it was on tuesday when my wife found out she was pregnant (for 6 weeks by now…. and after years of trying)…with our first child!!! And this new family-member-to-be would be my grandma’s first grand-grandchild, can you imagine!? So, inevitably,I have another mission now: to help my grandma fight Klatskin Tm long enough to see this dream of ours come true!
So I took the second shock much harder….My mom had an appointment with my grandma’s hospital gastroenterologist (the oncologist was, needless to say, unable to be present during the appointment due to her other (probably much more important !?) engagements) who checked her latest (very good) blood test results and was informed about my grandma’s improvement during the last week, but told my mom that there’s almost no use in any kind of therapy in my grandma’s case, and offered her only a possibility of (palliative!!!) low dose 5-FU chemotherapy that has to be administred intravenously (the insurance here doesn’t cover the costs of Xeloda pills that are equally effective, but when my mom said it’s really no problem for us to give the extra sum of 600$ for the whole chemo cycle, he still refused to prescribe her with Xeloda saying that there’s simply no use…., can you believe? I know I couldn’t! We just can’t have my 85 yo grandma drive 3 hours to the hospital and back on a daily basis for weeks ….it looks to me as if they really don’t care at all what happens to her…and it’s sad to say but—if she dies it’s only one problem less for them(not to mention less insurance money)- they’re thinking.. the old lady’s 85 so, well, no wonder if someone this age dies, yes? I really wasn’t looking at things this way… but now I’m quite sure this is the way the things go!
But they’re wrong if they think we’ll just leave the things as they are…I’m looking for an other oncologist who would check all of her tests (X-rays, CT and MR scans, blood tests) again and suggest an adequate treatment.
I mean, I’m aware of her age, but she looks and feels younger, her tumor’s not even visible on ct scan,there are no mets…this is simply not the case that could be treated only with palliative chemo, we’re not going to allow this to happen! … That is, we’ll see what the other oncologist will say…
Still, from tomorrow on she starts taking Megostat (megestrol acetate) and I’m confident it will help her with her appetite loss….perhaps even to gain some additional weight, we’ll see…
I’ll keep you updated

Dear Julia, I’m fine, thank you very much for asking! My grandma’s blood test results came yesterday and they’re perfect! We really didn’t expect her liver enzymes to come back to their normal level (nor did her gastroenterologist, at least he said so when she was leaving the hospital 4 weeks ago) and that’s exactly what happened! So, before, her liver enzyme values ranged from,I’don’t know, 500 to 700 and now they’re back to 20-50 (within the normal limits), it’s amazing! I didn’t expect this to happen mainly because she has her stents (2) both placed into her right hepatic duct, so I tought since there’s no bile flow from the left one…it had to accumulate in the liver, which would keep the enzymes permanently high, but…that’s obviously not the case! Her bilirubin’s back to 24, so I think she now has all the necessary prerequisites for the beginning of her chemotherapy! Well, at least I hope so! Her tamperature’s back to normal too, so that’s fine as well! Though, despite my wishes for her to start taking megestrol acetate for her loss of appetite/ weight loss, she’s still not taking it (she… and my mom are convinced they should first check with my grandma’s hospital oncologist whether she should be taking it or not, so I gave up insisting she should, hm….She’ll have the appointment next week, so we’ll see.

And, DianneH… thank you so very much for all the useful information on stents / blood clots, I really appreciate it. I do hope both you and your dad are doing well and I wish you both the very best of luck…

Thank you Gavin for replying,
you all have been such a great help to me during the past couple of days, I simply can’t thank you enough. My grandma’s already taking Abbott’s Prosure drinks/meals and they seem to be doing the trick (she gained 2 pounds – hip hip hooray! ). I’ll keep you updated,
God bless

Dear Lainy,…thank you very much for replying! I live and work about 200 miles away from my parents / my grandmother. So my parents (as well as my aunt and oncle) are the the actual caregivers for my grandma, but I do try to help as much as I can. Because of my work it’s impossible for me to stay with them during working week but since she was diagnosed I (and sometimes my wife) started spending weekends with them helping both my grandma and my parents to adjust to this new situation. I’m trying to get all the necessary information I think they may need, I’m buying dietary supplements for her, collecting info on possible treatment etc… I also contacted her gastroenterologist / oncologist on a daily basis to ask about her condition/diagnostic procedures/treatment/ when she was in the hospital. I’m so sorry I can’t be there for her all the time, but I’m trying do all that I can to help her.
Now I think I’m just not dealing with this the best way I could…..
Can you imagine.. the Dr that was on call in the Emergency center just said to my parents they should give her some antipyretics to get the fever down , no antibiotics??? What are they doing? (ok perhaps because she’s not feeling any pain / chills…)
I hope she’ll be fine by tomorrow
Thank you for your help, it means very much to me