As family we have found ourselves in the position of supporting my sister in law who has stage 4b rectal cancer which has metastasized in her liver and lungs. The past 12 weeks have been a hug roller coaster for her in terms of stoma bag op quickly followed by 1st round chemo by tablet which had to be stopped due to sickness and she was hospitalised for a week, restarted chemo by tablet last week and again had to stop.
My reach out is two fold
FolFox therapy by picc line has been recommended - the potential side effects have made her very wary and we are also concerned and advice for family supporters would be welcomed
We appreciate that the enormity of her situation is huge for her and her mood has got lower and lower - any advice on support greatly appreciated? Shuld share we have encouraged Maggies Support group to her, further discussions with oncology team and gp
Thanks in advance
Sorry to hear about your sister in law, does sound quite rough with the first type of chemotherapy - can relate to that some with my wife's first chemo as that caused some quite significant issues that were potentially even more serious than the cancer - still the doctors managed to fix them and the second chemo was much better.
We did not hear about picc lines until well in to my wife's treatment, they would have probably been a bit easier than the struggle they often had in finding a vein at each session as that quite often proved quite difficult.
Perhaps the thing many people think is most important is learning to listen, sometimes they might want to talk about the cancer and the treatment and other times they might want to talk about almost anything else - they are after all still the person you know.
One thing I had to work on some was remembering to look after me too, we often hear people talking about feeling selfish about that but as they say you cannot pour from an empty pot.
Hope some of that helps, do post whenever as someone is always listening.
<<hugs>>
Steve
