Hi I’m unsure on what to do. My grandad is 81 and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about 2 weeks ago. Essentially it came about as he wasn’t eating well since whenever he went to eat it made him nauseous and as if he’d been kicked in the gut. He’s lost a lot of weight and it took them 3 weeks to tell us he had cancer when they’d already had this information for a while. He ended up in hospital for a weekend because he was fainting and getting dizzy from how little food he could stomach. It was 2 days after this we found out over the PHONE that he has pancreatic cancer and that it had spread but they couldn’t tell us anything else until an appointment 2 days later. Luckily it hasn’t spread to any other organs. It’s just fireworked into the lining of his abdomen in small areas. But the cancer is all in the middle of his pancreas and we really don’t want it to spread. They’ve told us they’ve referred him to a dietitian but have been given no time frame for an appointment and in the mean time he’s just losing more and more weight. They are gonna do a biopsy on the cancer to see if it would be receptive to chemo, which would help us prolong what he has left but they haven’t given us a date for that either. So I feel like we’re waiting so much and we could just be losing more and more time that we have with him. They also say he’s a healthy candidate for chemo but he needs to put more weight on to be able to handle it but he can’t eat enough and we’re trying so much but we just feel like the consultant isn’t taking it seriously and are worried that just cos he’s old that he’s being written off. We’re also thinking of pushing him to change consultant because she’s made a few comments like ‘so have you lost weight?’ When she knows he has and when talking about the procedure for the biopsy said ‘it’s quite a fun procedure, but not for the patient’. We’re just at a loss. We are a really close knit family me and my mum have lived with my grandma and grandad since I was born and I’m now 21 so he’s been a father and grandfather to me so it’s incredibly hard seeing how slow (I feel) it’s going? We’re all just worried as his sister died very fast of the exact same cancer about 10 years ago, even tho there’s no genetic link with pancreatic cancer. so we don’t want to lose too much time. Any information on how long this kind of thing normally takes would be great as we just don’t have any clue.
Hi becks99 and welcome to the online community
I'm really sorry to read that your grandad has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and I know what an incredibly hard time this will be for the whole family.
I hope you don't mind me suggesting that you copy and paste your post from here into a new post in the pancreatic cancer group, which I can see you've joined, as you'll then connect with others dealing with this particular type of cancer who may be able to answer some of your questions. If this is something you'd like to do clicking on the link I've created will take you straight there.
While you're waiting for replies it would be great if you could pop something about your grandad's diagnosis and treatment into your profile as it really helps others when answering or looking for someone with a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
If you have any difficulty navigating the community just drop me a reply and I'll be pleased to help.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Hi becks99
Sorry to read about your grandad and the problems he has been having. I am sure the cancer diagnosis was a shock to him and considering he lost his sister it probably took a while to work out how he felt before he wanted to spread the worry - I know my father was not good about sharing health news.
The life moving in slow motion bit is something I think everyone on here can recognize, it sometimes helps to balance this a bit with a thought like "fools rush in" because there is little point rushing to do chemotherapy until they know the best type and only a biopsy is going to give that data.
One thing I had to learn, the hard way, was to remember to look after myself too. If we look at Your feelings when someone has cancer we can see just how common it is to feel overwhelmed and that can leave us being less helpful than we might like. One great tip we got was to remember to ask at every appointment when should we expect to hear something - as in when should we start chasing vs when should we just be trying to keep calm and carry on.
<<hugs>>
Steve
