shar
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I haven’t been on this site for a while. My mom has been gone almost a year now. We had 6 months from her getting sick (we had no idea she was sick until the jaundice started) until she died. Things happened so quickly that we
never had a chance to really soak in what was happening.
Reading this post was like I had written it myself. I also find myself watching the dvd, in my mind, of the last couple of days. I have the same questions about if we did everything we could for her? Was she scared at the end?
The “firsts” have been hard (first Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas) and with the first anniversary approaching I am visiting those last days more frequently.
I am very relived to hear that I am not the only one that asks the questions and I am looking forward to the day when once again seeing her picture or hearing her name will do nothing but make me smile.I read your post and it appears we are going through the same journey at the same time. My mother was told last week that there is nothing more that can be done. She is very jaundiced and has ascites. I haven’t decided if the amount of sleeping she has been doing is because of the cancer or the fact that there is nothing more that can be done.
I would also like to know a little more about what to expect. I am not sure why this is important to me but it is the question that keeps nagging me. I know that no one can tell us exactly but we really have not been told anything except she will get more and more tired.
I understand about being drained emotionally. I think that is the hardest part. I have actually caught myself wishing the end would just come since there is nothing more that can be done. I need to learn to enjoy the days we have left but I am struggling to do that. Our only good news is so far, mom has had very little pain and is only on a lose dose pain pill.
Mom had another ERCP yesterday and they did replace her stent. Unfortunately they also found that the tumor had grown and had in fact pushed the old stent out of place. This time they tried putting in two stents but did tell us that if this doesn’t work they will have to go with an external stent.
Mom is doing okay although I don’t think the “fog” has cleared enough for her to completely understand everything she was told yesterday.
My question is what should we expect the oncologist to say about another type of chemo. Mom is 75 and has tried Gem/Cispl and was currently on 5fu/Oxipl because of tumor growth during the initial chemo. The GI dr said that chemo doesn’t stop CC but the hope is to slow the growth. However how do you measure slowed growth. There is no way to no how fast it would have grown without chemo. My point is the chemo hasn’t stopped it from growing but how do we know it hasn’t slowed it down? At what point do they stop recommending chemo? Do they ever tell you it is no longer an option?
Thank you so much for all your posts. This is all so new and foreign to us. I can honestly say that six months ago I had not heard of an external stent or bile duct cancer. I keep thinking that I am learning so much more than I ever wanted to know. Thanks again!
Thank you for all your support. I have been reading this site for several months and the support is one of the reasons I joined. People mean well but until you go through it you just don’t completely understand.
Marion- Mom does have a plastic stent, they talked about metal when they had to change it in two months but decided to try plastic again. Yes, fluids is one thing she works very hard at. She struggles with eating but, she has been “making herself eat” and so far has been able to maintain her weight.
She is checking her temp daily, and luckly we did catch the recent infection very early.
