Last treatment

Hi Doris and welcome to the forum.

I'm so sorry to read the situation you all find yourselves in.  

My immediate thought is that your meeting with the consultant doesn't sound very helpful.  Is there a contact number on the paperwork for a clinical nurse you can contact for further information?  Failing that, can you contact his consultant for more information?   Seems to me you've just been left hanging.

My very best wishes.

Linda x

Dont get me wrong he was a nice enough chap and he did leave an open appointment so if dad needs to speak to him he just needs to get in touch. Dad also had a mri scan on his pelvis (previous anal cancer) but no news about that yet, he also has a blood clot in his leg. Its just frustrating as dad is not allowing access to his patient record so can't really discuss whats going on with the gp

Hi Doris

What a difficult situation, your father is so lucky to have such a supportive daughter.

I would also want a lot more information than was given to give me an idea what to expect next. I would definitely follow up with the consultant or a Macmillan nurse to get some info and also to ask about referral to a dietician if your father agrees. He needs to keep up his nutrition or he will become very weak. He also might need counselling to help him cope with the situation. He may agree to these referrals if he has more info to work with.

I would have thought that normal procedure would mean that the consultant would send a letter to your father’s G.P. so he would be in the loop.

Wishing you all the best.

Lyn

Thanks hopefully we get some news soon

Hi Doris, you are in a very tough place, I’m sorry. Firstly, I would suspect that a big element of Dad’s reaction is that he’s terrified? That may well partly excuse the smoking and the booze? I think even without his explicit consent, your first action should be to engage and discuss with Dad’s GP. He will have been informed by the hospital of any “action plan”. I can reassure you that this will not be an unfamiliar scenario to his Doctor. There will be issues of confidentiality that they will not breach, but if there is to be no active treatment from secondary care, then you are going to need help from the community services ie GP community nurses MacMillan and possibly hospice. That discussion can never happen too soon, please dont delay until there is a crisis! Perhaps with Dad, stress that you’re trying to make life easier to help Mum? He might accept that more than fears for himself. Best wishes and keep trying, no matter how resistant he is! Phil

Had a bit of a breakthrough i spoke to the gp on friday who said that dad had allowed them to speak to me and ive now found out that the cancer was under his tongue but now spread to his jaw. The mri on pelvis has shown to be stable in that area for now so some good news. I mentioned about morphine patches with him not willing to take pain relief and got a prescription and hallelujah he let me put one on him so will see if it helps him

That's great news Doris, well done.

Linda x

Its a start just need him to start eating something, the doctor did explain that further down the line there will come a point where he will stop both eating and drinking but will deal with that when the time comes and i'll keep working on him to try and get support from macmillan or doctors

Is your dad not eating due to being in pain when he eats Doris?

Linda x

He says due to the pain its hard to eat. He has been given fortisips but when he tried them within 20 mins he was off to the loo but he has been quite loose for a long time due to the alcohol intake i think. If he keeps up with the morphine patches the doc said that might help with that side of things but i personally feel he is not wanting to eat, he is also sleeping a lot and not getting up till much later in the afternoon after mam has shouted up the stairs a few times, when he does get up he has a coffee and a couple of smokes then spends the rest of the day laid down on the settee, im starting to feel he has give up :(