This is mostly about my experience of seeing my husband of nearly 50 years who was a big active man start to diminish because of bowel cancer.
We were so thankful when he had a life-threatening bowel obstruction operated on under emergency conditions even though were were in North Cyprus on holiday at the time. The obstrution (2 cancerous tumours) was removed plus 13 lymph nodes, with a bowel resection. Fortunately he didn't need a colostomy bag as the obstruction was higher up in the bowel.
He seemed to recover well after the surgery - remarkably so as he had an abdominal aortic aneurism repaired using the same incision as the bowel surgery. We managed to get home OK - with help from both lovely sons.
Keith saw an oncologist last week, and was told he needed 6-8 weeks wait after 2 big ops before starting chemo. Also Dr Last says he is not fit enough for chemo yet. He needs to build up his strength and stamina, so high energy/high protein drinks have been prescribed.
But he is so tired, has real difficulty in eating much - and then only small portions. He finds the drinks rather unpleasant and has only manage one a day so far when he should be having two!. He has discomfort in his upper abdomen most of the time, which gets relieved a bit if he manages to go to the loo. He spends most of his time sitting in the chair or lying on the bed - which is his most comfortable position.
Also Dr Last is not quite sure yet exactly what type of cancer Keith has. The doctor has had to work with reports translated from Turkish, and with tissue samples which we brought home with us. I'm hoping one of his team may have managed to speak to the surgeon who performed the op on the bowel as that very kind man (who speaks excellent English) gave us his mobile phone number which I have now passed on to Dr Last's team. We don't have any of the scan results taken prior to the op - these are in Cyprus. We don't know if the canceer has spread elsewhere, but Dr Last suspects it may have done, as he told us that if it has spread there is no sure cure.
Keith vomited twice yesterday - a bad sign I think. He left a message for his assigned nurse to call back, as we don't quite know what to do next. Our GP has not been the most helpful of people as yet, so we don't want to approach him unnecessarily. Keith has a furthe appointment with DR Last in 2 weeks, and he is waiting for an appointment for a full body scan which we assume will happen before he sees Dr Last.
Thank God for supportive family and friends. But this is one way I can say things to ease some of the tension which really comes from not knowing what to expect.
