Hello Macmillan,
I am new here so apologies if this isn't the kind of post, I am just a little lost and exhausted and stumbled my way here through the millionth google of 'what happened to my mum'.
Brief background; in February my Mum got diagnosed with small cell bladder cancer, the tumour was large, and he said seemed been there a while - further scans show it had spread into her Lymph nodes in her pelvis. But no other organs affected yet.
She had a successful 'clear up' surgery in March to remove as much as possible - chemo would then be next but mum suffered from a cardio vascular disease and so would be too risky - she then underwent 6.5 weeks of radio on her pelvis in May/ June.
She took it like a champ (stopped smoking finally) and she looked FAB, July was Wimbledon and smiles - although she started to get an intense backache, and felt very sick.
The vomiting got worse, then she felt very weak and we went to hospital, they did 2 CT Scans in one day and discovered that it had spread to her Liver and in her lymph nodes in various places around her body (abdomen, lung potentially and neck).
We came home for two nights - she was still very poorly but at least in her own bed. We went in the next day to sign up for chemo (as risk of heart attack was worth taking on over no treatment at all). That day her results came back and turned out she was painfully dehydrated and her kidney function was down to 10%.
Rush to A&E - on an IV drip, still feeling sick, no real food or liquids still. A few days in hospital and no real improvement (but also kidneys not getting any worse) we go to ICU, and by now she is in a full delirium - had no idea who we were. Was absolutely devastating. All doctors say there's nothing more they can do. The only fix would be dialysis but too risky - plus kidneys were slowly getting up to 15% by themselves.
7 days later, we are told palliative care had taken over, and we get her to comfortable hospice and have our family around her as we all said goodbye.
It just feels SO SO quick - to go from "maybe a few years left" to 8 days. Has anyone else experienced anything so rapid?
But then I google small cell bladder cancer and looks like 0.7% of people get it, it is VERY aggressive and only gives a few months prognosis.
Would love to hear from ANYONE who has been in anything remotely similar as I am feeling exhausted looking for answers and sincerely hope this is not a case of NHS negligence,
Thank you so much for listening
Jenna x
