Bile duct cancer

Hello Xena,

I am so sorry for the news about your mum.

In case it helps, below I share a summary of the five weeks mum spent in hospital. Don't feel you have to read it, the summary is that things progressed much more quickly than expected and she did not suffer a huge amount of pain.

I took my mum to hospital with sudden jaundice, it took a couple of weeks for them to diagnose bile duct cancer, a day or two later she was told that there were two "masses" and it was terminal. We discussed her returning home and being treated as an out patient, but her condition worsened daily, and events moved much more quickly than anticipated. For most of her time in hospital pain was not a major issue, at the end she received morphine to deal with an increase in pain occurring at the same time as sudden internal bleeding caused by the cancer. She was moved onto a side room on the ward, apparently not in pain any more, and for the last twelve hours or so did not need any pain relief, but was less and less conscious as time passed until she stopped breathing.

Best wishes to you, take care of yourself as well as your mum and if you can, take a few hours off - even if it's only to sit in a coffee shop and get some support from the wonderful folks on this forum.

Thankyou for your helpful reply