Hi everyone
My mum has bladder cancer that's also in the lung - she was given 12-15 months last September.
She's been on an immunotherapy trial for the last 4 months, which initially was going well and then things just took a rapid decline - no eating, barely any drinking, sleeping all the time, severe muscle wastage to the point that she couldn't walk or hold her head up properly. It was rapid.
She lives nearly 2 hours from the hospital and had managed to get there 2 weeks ago for what she thought was her next infusion but they took one look at her and admitted her. No treatment, scans - I got authorised to go and see her and I was shocked, she was skin and bones, slightly delirious - I think everyone thought that was it.
So she was put on steroids, a scan showed a new nodule in the pelvis but otherwise was ok - and was released a week later with a plan for radiotherapy, no more immunotherapy.
She has been eating like a horse ever since - my dad is really happy about that, she's managing to walk about a bit, and managed to do the 2hr trip to the hospital yesterday - I mean, I have questions that I want to ask but I don't want to come across that I'm in denial - as I'm really not. I'm just like everyone else and want to know what's really going on and what are looking at here etc. I don't really understand cancer - I thought that you could control it for a bit and then all of a sudden you can't and then it just spreads like wildfire - but that's not the case yet with mum. So anyway
- can treatment toxicity look like end-stage disease but actually, stopping the treatment can improve things for a while?
- can you bounce back for a few months after being literally skin and bone and at deaths door?
- obviously it's the steroids that have perked her up - how long can you stay on steroids?
I realise these are how long is a piece of string type questions/thoughts!
Thank you
Wishing all of you and your loved ones here strength and peace
Hi Puglover
I'm sorry to read that your mum has bladder cancer which has spread to her lungs and that she was recently very poorly.
It's natural to have lots of questions and I noticed that no one in the group had felt able to help yet. I'm not going to be much help answering them but I have found this information from Macmillan which tells you how steroids are used. As you will see they can be used to improve appetite which has obviously happened in your mum's case.
I think that the rest of your questions would be more likely to get an answer if you post them in the ask a nurse section of the community where one of the specialist cancer information nurses will aim to reply in 2 working days.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
