6 weeks

Less than one minute read time.

FormerMember

24 Sep 2011

My dad has secondary bone cancer- which his GP thought was a torn muscle rather than the pathological hip fracture it turned out to be.The pain prevented him sleeping, and he began to lose his mind. He was hospitalised in August as he had tried to drive to my sister's house at 6:63 am but couldn't remember how to drive and had locked himself out of the house. Now he thinks he is a cyborg and my sister is a fly, another patient is a carrot and he is alternately agitated and depressed. The ward doctor says it is permanent dementia and the mental health team that it is a delerium. I'm in Australia so cannot help my sister and my brother, who may have to get power of attourney and sell his house to pay for his care as he will be unable to live by himself again.

FormerMember over 13 years ago

Hi Carrie,

Sorry to read about your predicament and your Dad's problems. I've read that with lung cancer, there can be secondaries (mets) in the brain as well as the bones. In fact it happened recently to someone I knew. Have the doctors checked him out for this? It may be that the hip fracture is throwing everyone off the scent - they seem to think it was the pain making him either demented or delirious, but it could well be the cancer spreading.

I hope this, though it may be bad news, may help.

Best wishes,

Annie
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FormerMember over 13 years ago

Carrie, something I forgot to mention: morphine can cause hallucinations. That has been reported many times on here. Do you know if your Dad is on morphine?

Annie x
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FormerMember over 13 years ago

My dad has prostate cancer as the probable original site, and had a brain scan which showed no spread there. He is on painkillers, but I don't know which ones- my sister gets very little details to me.Latest is that he is refusing to eat/drink unless he is made to, still in "whacky world", low sodium again so on restricted intake and incontinent. I think the hospital regard him as a bed- blocker now and want him out into a nursing home. This means my sister has to sell his house to pay for the care.It sucks.
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