He was diagnosed with some rare form of pancreatic cancer last year which causes him to over produce insulin, that's how they found it.
It has spread. He has it in his liver and his stomach too now. Also his neck has tumours as well
He has had one form of chemo. They have him on another one but they cut the dosage because it gave him nosebleeds. The next one will make his hair go grey. The other chemo option they said will make his hair fall out and he won't do that one he says.
He is tired all the time, in a lot of pain. They give him oramorph and all sorts of things. But he is always in pain or asleep.
It's a really rare form of pancreatic cancer insulinoma? I'm probably not getting it all right here. I find it quite confusing to keep up.
Basically the doctor said last year that not matter what we do this will kill you. Time frame unknown. But since he spent 6 months out of a year on chemo and now he has even more tumours, so not looking good
My brother appears cool as a cucumber about all of this. Chemo all the time. Freezing his sperm so he could have kids maybe. And for that I am grateful, I've only seen him cry about it once. Doesn't mean he isn't upset of course. And his girlfriend who has stuck by him even tho he is going to die and he told her to leave him and she won't.
I don't ever show him but I am finding all of this very distressing. It's all I can think about all day all night, I can't sleep properly every area of my life is going down. Writing this message now half crying. It's messing my life up but that is rubbish, my brother is the one with the illness, I feel ashamed I am even writing this.
There is no cure for my brothers illness. And this troubles me I can't do anything none of us can
Thanks for reading.
Hi ,
Sorry to hear about your brother, for me the cancer is with my wife, also rare but Leiomyosacoma.
I can relate to how you are feeling, it is very common to see the patient almost getting on with what they need to do while family and friends can really struggle. I have also seen very often people say "I have to be strong" but then I have also seen patients say "they do not care" - it really is pretty much a no win situation and I well remember crying in the shower - then I could blame the shampoo in the eyes.
I did a living with less stress course with Maggie's that really helped me to appreciate what we have rather than what we might have lost - I was perhaps living in something of a state of pre-grief that was not helping me or really anyone else. The mindfulness exercises helped me relax and a good bit of exercise helped me to get my sleep back under control as not sleeping well is both very common and something that can make people ill really quite quickly.
Hope things work out as well as they can so you can make the most of your time together.
<<hugs>>
Steve
