janemanuel
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Thanks so much everybody. I live very very far away from my mother at the moment unfortunately (almost exactly as far as it’s possible to be in fact, without leaving planet Earth) and it’s not something I can change quickly, so I’m nearly always going to get things second hand, and getting any precise information is like squeezing blood from a stone. Anyway, it turns out that the diagnosis is actually pancreatic cancer, but the tumour is growing on the bile duct and has blocked it. So I am probably in the wrong forum.
On the bright side, my mother feels OK, just more tired than usual, and is actually really happy and positive about the treatment proposed, and that is obviously important too. She had a stent put in and will start chemo next week. I have the feeling that we are probably looking at a lot of treatments and ups and downs and I will need to find plenty of patience (and buy a lot of plane tickets). Best of luck every one in your own struggles. It’s a terrible situation.
Thank you very much for the quick replies. The proximity of major blood vessels apparently means that it’s not resectable and the medical team is not currently aiming to achieve that, so far as I understand. She is in a major cancer centre so I do think she’s getting good advice, but I also suspect she’s either looking at it through rose tinted glasses, or maybe not telling me the whole truth. I am trying to persuade her to get further opinions but she just wants to get on with the treatment at the moment.
She refuses to do any kind of research on the illness herself and wants just to do what the doctor recommends (this is her normal character too). To the extent that she told me she was quite positive because bile ducts are so small that a tumour blocks them very quickly, so when you get symptoms it’s still at an early stage. I can’t believe a CC expert in a cancer centre would have said this! I will keep trying to get her to be more assertive. I agree that it’s worth a lot of trouble – any amount of trouble.
