Hi, im new here, my mum has recently being diagnosed with lung cancer which has spread to lymph nodes, she cant have treatment as she has severe copd and it would be too dangerous, she has been given months to live, since then she has been put on a maintenance dose of steroids, now she looks completely well and I cant get my head round that she is dying when she is doing so well.
Does anyone have any experience of this and how long are we looking at before the steroid effects start to wane?
Hi Kima
I am sorry your mum has lung cancer which has spread and that she can’t have treatment. I don’t have direct experience as I have metastatic breast cancer. I had a lengthy period of treatment with high dose steroids following issues caused by immunotherapy. They work very well on inflammation and I imagine your mum is benefiting from this. It may be they keep her on steroids, or migrate her to another drug that has similar benefits once she is stable. If she is on high dose steroids or has been on them for more than a few days, they can’t just be stopped anyway; they have to be weaned down to enable the body to get back to making its own cortisol. I think it’s very difficult to judge how long someone has to live and I hope she continues to feel as well as possible.
The attached pages may be of help. It might also be worth contacting our nurses on the number below.
www.macmillan.org.uk/.../end-of-life
Macmillan Support Line - 0808 808 00 00, 7 days a week between 8am-8pm
I am a Macmillan volunteer.
I have metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer, in remission
