Hello

Hi 

Big welcome to the forum . Sorry to hear about your wife but great that she has achieved stability and a break . Always good words to hear .

How is she keeping ? Great you joined in the forum . Ask anything you like or pop on any thread .

Hope your wife is have a lovely chemo free time .

Court 

Hi Court.

We were a bit concerned at first when the oncologist said it was stable after treatment because i think we expected more.

Then my wife was told last week that her picc line will be removed probably this week so she thought they might not be giving her anymore treatment.

The oncologist did say they wouldnt give her the same drug again so presumably they will administer it in a different way.

She did have a pump attached for 3 days a week.

https://community.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/forum/19900-new-treating-advanced-bowel-cancer-booklet-now-available

Hi 

I have attached a booklet from Bowel cancer U.K. . It is good to see the different chemo combinations that can be achieved  depending on her cell type . 
I don’t know too much about picc lines but I know they are careful regarding infections etc . My mum actually had all her chemo through cannula but I hear a line is much easier .

The other thing to remember she can always get a second opinion to see what her treatment options would be from a different oncologist if she is ever concerned. Not sure where it has spread to but if you click on my user name you can read my mum’s treatment approach . Lots of stops and starts . She did in fact use the same chemo back then but required a six months gap between it . Not quite sure what the rules are now but if you are ever in doubt you can Google the NICE guidelines for stage 4 colon cancer to get information .

Take care ,

Court 

Hi and a warm welcome from me too. I had a picc line for my post op chemo and they took it out as soon as I was finished as they need regular flushing to avoid bloods clots. If your wife is having a break from treatment then this is possibly why? They may put another picc line in when she restarts treatment or maybe a port which is placed just under the skin in the chest.

Hope the stable condition continues

Take care

Karen x

Thankyou Court.

Its spread to the liver.

I don’t know how extensive her liver spread is but you will see my mum had 73% of her liver resected . Has her  oncologist mentioned getting a surgical or radiology review ? Depending on size and location sometimes surgery or Radio frequency ablation is possible. There is a criteria for both . But it really depends on where it is and what size it is .

Lots of people doing well on chemo for years too . It just depends on the getting the right approach for her .

Take care ,

Court 

Hi Kareno62

Thankyou for your help.

She has had it in since August and has it flushed every monday with saline and they inject heparin to stop any blood clots.

It will be nice for her to have it removed as they put it too low down in her arm which restricted her arm movement.

No the oncologist hasnt mentioned it but already being in this group is giving me more info going forward.The trouble is we dont like asking too many questions and getting answers that we wouldnt like to hear.We dont know how big the tumours are and actually never been told.

Totally understand that . She has made good progress to get to stability and a chemo break . It actually took a full two years of treatment to get to a point where the larger resection was possible for my mum .  Do what you both can cope with at the moment . That’s the main thing . 
Even 11 years later my mum has never allowed a prognosis discussion as she felt it would harm her .

Take care ,

Court 

It wasnt very nice how we were told about my wifes condition.in fact when we first went to see the surgeons understudy she thought we knew that my wife had BC.She said straight away it was inoperable.From what i have read it probably means inoperable at that time but maybe subject to change in the future.am i right?