I have posed a number of questions on this site, though have changed my loggin name as I was worried my wife's oncologist could trace my observations back to my wife. A couple of comments by him may have been unique to her treatment, so I felt it necessary to change my identity.
My wife has RCC which has spread from her left kidney towards her lungs and adrenal glands. A CT scan at Christmas showed some reduction in the size of her tumour, only a couple of mms, but this was most welcome news. Since then, she has had two further scans. A couple of weeks ago, we had a face to face meeting with her onco and he announced "Good News, your tumour is stable". This is indeed good news, but my wife looked a little glum, so he asked "Aren't you happy? It's good news!" . My wife explained that she had been feeling very well in herself, and was hoping to see a further reduction in the size of the tumour. It might seem ungrateful but she was really disappointed. He went on to explain that this was good news because it showed that the treatment was working. "We aim to stop the tumour growing, if we can do that, we are in control". Then came the inevitable question "for how long?". Of course, we know that patients respond differently, there is no 'norm' but he gave an upbeat response, which was heartening.
Now, there was some misunderstanding with the original diagnosis, a year ago, in that it was felt that there were two tumours, but there is just one, which is a mighty relief. This led me to ask him to say where exactly the tumour was located - I should have left it at that, but the onco obliged and produced a neat drawing of exactly where the tumour was located, also the various mets, over to the adrenal glands, via two or three lymph nodes over towards both lungs. Big mistake! This left my wife terribly depressed for some days, indeed, it positively floored her.
I have tried my best to cheer her up, give her encouragement, pass on the positive messages which get posted on this site, but it will take a long time to repair the damage of my question.
Which is a rather long way of suggesting "DON'T ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS!" Be grateful for good news, and don't go too heavily into detail. It works well for some patients who can cope, but it doesn't work for everyone.
Hi Bodger23
Thanks for taking the time to share your recent experience and I'm sure there'll be others who will be able to empathize.
If your wife will give her permission to her hospital team to talk to you, this would enable you to ask questions without her there. You could then get the information you need without your wife hearing anything that might upset her.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
But it wouldn't be a secret Bodger23 , as she would have given you permission to speak to her doctors. Lots of people who don't want to know their prognosis, or details of their diagnosis, allow their partners to ask questions.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Hi Bodger, my husband is in a similar position to your wife. RCC with spread to lungs and lymph nodes. From the start we agreed that he would give me permission to talk to medical teams on his behalf. This is noted with GP, Oncologist, Pharmacist, MacMillan etc.
We face into everything together and we like the details - it generally helps us. Our team have been great and we get to see the scans, radiographers reports etc. However, whenever my husband feels like he's had enough detail - he'll tell the team to talk to me and they give me the info. I then read up and I am then ready for if/when he wants to know more - which I then usually drip feed him over the following days and weeks. It's sort of my way of supporting him through this.
He doesn't like to know about side effects of treatment, so again, I read up on these, the oncologist and pharmacist have the initial conversations with my husband, and then will take me to one side so I'm 100% sure of any critical side effects to watch out for. His view is if he doesn't know, he won't worry that each ache is a side effect or something bad. He only worries if I worry!
As the saying goes, "there is nowt so strange as folk" is so true and we all have our little ways! 
We've not met any medical professional along our journey who hasn't been supportive of how we choose to receive information, and it's ok to tell your team how you would prefer to talk with them going forward. You won't be saying anything they haven't heard before.
All the best to you both x
