maryellen

Hi Jean,

Thank you for posting a reply. My sister was actually diagnosed 20 months ago. The tumour had taken up a fair amount of her left lobe of the liver and she had some spots in the lungs at that stage. The first course of treatment with Jen was the Sirspheres. They made her ill for a short while but then she came back to her old self. I really feel in hindsight that the Sirspheres helped give her time. She was on chemo (Xeloda and carboplatin) but that didn’t seem to do too much. She was good until just after January this year when it had metastized to her sacrum and hip for which she had radiotherapy. Even at my 40th birthday in February she was up dancing, but her apetite had diminished a little and she walked with a bit of a limp and was a bit tired.

She started to go “downhill” late February/early March and had a couple of stays in hospital to mainly have her tummy drained (5 litres at most was drained) as she started to develop ascites which is fluid that gathers in the tummy because the liver is having difficulty in processing same. She had this done three or four times. Unlike a lot of other people on this site, Jen never had a stent put in, I don’t know why. By this time the tumour had extensively covered her liver. She hadn’t had chemo for about 1 month and maybe the tumour went crazy, I don’t know. The chemo was knocking around her platelettes thus should couldn’t have it. The past month she was having morphine and sleeping most of the time and had difficulty walking. They tried her on a new chemo called Taxotir which the oncologist said is pretty savage and that she would definitely lose her hair this time (she hadn’t previously lost her hair). She too couldn’t look at meat, but enjoyed rice custards, plain custards and ginger beer.

Two weeks ago she went in to have her tummy drained again and late that night woke up in excrutiating pain in her head, neck and all over. It took them a while in the hospital to get the pain relief sorted then the next thing we knew we were all called to the hospital and she passed away later in the afternoon. It all happened so quick. I think we all knew that she was eventually going to go but we thought she was probably going to go on for another six weeks or so.

After all of this, all I can say is that EVERY case of CC is different. No two are the same. And while there is life, there is hope. And its a good idea (I think) that you get more than one opinion and be positive.

Thinking of you and wishing you peace Jean.

Maryellen xxoo

Dear Joyce, Thank you so much for your kind words and thoughts. The info you have provided is very interesting! I have picked her up from hospital today and she seemed the best I have seen her in a couple of days. She has been experiencing faintness and weakness for about the past four weeks and from today it seems to be subsiding somewhat.

I mentioned to her that I had been on this site thinking that she would be excited (as once she said she wished she had breast cancer as at least she would have someone to talk to) and unfortunately she didn’t want to talk about it, which makes me frustrated and sad, but I guess like us all she is going through all sorts of emotions. It is such an emotionally draining time for us all. She starts a course of Texitor on Monday which will apparently make her very sick and lose her hair (she has kept her her to date even with all the chemo treatments she has been having).

Anyway we just take one day at a time. Sorry for unloading…….

Maryellen