Inoperable bowel cancer

Oh bless you, I was diagnosed palliative care bowel cancer Also inoperable, I decided against a stoma and been on chemo for 5 mths, my first scan showed slight shrinkage on liver mets and have my next scan in 2 weeks time, I have had minimum side affects thankfully and all bowel pain went as soon as chemo started, it’s an awful situation and my thoughts are with your mum and yourself, xx

Many thanks for your post.

Mum's wasn't a choice due to blockage, sadly, but at least she can eat and drink again (sort of). We are now praying she can have palliative chemotherapy. 

Your post is so helpful at this time. 

I hope your next sscanners further improvement.

Xx

Scan sees not sscanners

Hi Kezzie100,

Really sorry to hear about your Mum. My Mum is in a similar situation so I know how you're feeling.

You mention you will find out soon if your Mum will have palliative chemo, is there any reason why you feel this may not be possible? Is she generally in good health? 

There's lots of people whose cancer can be controlled for a long time on chemo and with a good quality of life, so there is still hope despite it being inoperable. 

It wad the words the surgeon used. He was very clear in using language that didn't infer it would be a definite.

Then I raised a question of transport as they can't drive now and if there are any options and was told not to worry about that now, as they would need to see if palliative chemotherapy would help.

So, it was the language to be honest. And the fact I normally look on the brightside but that side of me has been blown to smithereens in past week.

Oh I see, that language was used with my Mum too so I wouldn't read too much into it.

It's more a case of the surgeon referring onto the Oncologist who will then explain the pros and cons of having chemo so that your Mum can make an informed decision of whether she wants it or not. Generally if patients are relatively fit and well then they will decide to have chemo but a small number decide not to. Therefore the language from surgeons is always "Patient X is being referred for the consideration of Palliative chemo". 

If your Mum is generally fit and well then she'll almost certainly be offered chemo. 

I hope that is the case.

Many thanks for posting

Hi Kezzie100

Welcome to the forum . So sorry to hear about your mum .

Certainly I think palliative care is decided more on the bases of the persons ability to tolerate chemotherapy as IJP suggested and I think there is also the professional respect shown by each specialist to allow the oncologist /MDT meeting to decide the direction of treatment collectively so everything is hedged to ensure no absolutes are given .

Like IJP my mum had all sorts of constraint language used and it’s part of managing a difficult diagnosis in the early days so we all remain focused in our expectations .

Difficult on the forum to get a feel for individuals but to give you some insight my mum was 67 at diagnosis with an operable bowel tumour but inoperable spread to her liver . If you click on my user name you can see her response to palliative chemo .

It takes time to know who she would respond as an individual and that’s hard but it’s not without hope .

Send your mum our love .

Court 

Hi IJP

How is your mum getting on ? Hope she is doing ok .

Court 

Hi court,

Thanks for asking. She's doing OK. She's now back on chemo and is tolerating it pretty well so far. 

Her bowel op didn't quite go to plan, it was an R1 resection so they didn't quite get it all out. That meant the planned liver op couldn't go ahead which was disappointing. The main aim of the treatment now seems to be keeping things under control, but if she has a great response to chemo who knows what may be possible. Trying to keep positive about it.