My dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer 5 weeks ago. He has spent the past 3 weeks in hospital as the cancer has rapidly spread from the lung to the brain spine and muscle. Does anyone have experience of really aggressive brain metastases? The cognitive changes are increasingly difficult. He knows who I am which is great but his intellect is deteriorating daily. he is losing himself to the disease. It has not been helped by the fact that for the past 10 days he has been on a Covid ward (he contracted it from the previous ward) and has not been allowed to have visitors (understandably) So we have not seen him or been able to do anything other than talk to him daily. I am just so afraid of how he is going to look when we are allowed to visit again.. and that that high dose of steroid is just frazzling what is left of him. I just wanted to know how other people in a similar situation are coping with personality/behavior changes. thanks x
Hi Cbenns79
So sorry to hear about your dad. Cannot share exactly the same as my dad did not have cancer but we lost him bit by bit to a number of seizures and he was in an out of hospital. Towards the end he was in a high dependency care home and even there he could be quite difficult to manage.
In some ways when he died it felt like a relief that he was no longer suffering but then the feeling of what do we do now cut in. There was also a sense of relief that we did not have to organise all the care and then hit with guilt for feeling that.
Hope some of that helps you perhaps feel less alone, you are dealing with really impossible circumstances and from what you post it sounds like you are doing a really remarkable job.
<<hugs>>
Steve
