NEW FORUM MEMBER

Hi Everyone, 

I'm Les, 62 and recently been informed I have secondary liver cancer (I think). I was diagnosed with stage 4 Stomach cancer in January 2022 and initially told months to live palliative care only but after a few weeks of further consultations I was offered Chemo (FLOT) to try and shrink the tumor sufficiently to allow surgery. The tumor did not respond particularly well to the chemo but enough combined with my general fitness to allow surgery to go ahead. The tumor was removed in June 2022 and I had 3 out of four rounds of adjuvant chemo after that.  Following that originally diagnosis I consider myself to have been fortunate and the time I have had since my treatment finished in Oct 23 as a bonus.

Since Oct 23 until January this year I had no ill health and it felt as though I had never been ill. In January I started to develop symptoms and thought I had a virus but the GP advised based on my history that we run a full set of tests. I had stool and blood tests a CT scan, Colonoscopy and MRI which revealed that the cancer had returned to my abdomen and the diagnosis is that the cancer has returned and is in the cells in the soft tissue in my abdomen, causing biliary obstruction and probable solitary liver metastasis (is this secondary liver cancer?).  

The oncologist consultation was pretty much as I expected it would be, he offered me palliative chemo similar to the FLOT in 2022 but due to the poor response to that he felt there would be a high chance of the cancer being resistant and estimated the treatment might get me an additional 2 to 3 months, immunotherapy alongside that might be an option.

Considering the treatment would last for 3 months and have all the associated risks such as low immunity, risk of infection etc I have decided not to have it and just to deal with the cancer symptoms as they arise (I am still not sure if that is the right decision).

At the moment I feel fine apart from some minor liver related symptoms such as itchy skin and night sweats, shivers with high temp on occasion (seems to be once a week) and mild diaoreah, Aqua Soothe cream seems to have solved the itching (none for 3 weeks and I only used it for 3 nights), the sweats have not occurred for 2 to 3 weeks either and taking Creon (this is the first week) appears to be alleviating the digestive issues. I do get fatigue but then again Ive played golf 4 times this week with no real problem so a bit of fatigue is probably to be expected. 

The hardest thing for me and my family is not knowing what to expect or when and so what preparations to make, it seems no one can predict that.  I have been going through the posts in this forum to try and get an idea but everyone is different and most had a different primary cancer.  If anyone feels their own experience is applicable and is willing to share that would be appreciated. 

I am looking at alternative approaches such as Reiki, and dietary options such as Turkey Tail so if anyone has experiences to share that would also be appreciated. 

If anyone knows if there is a more appropriate forum for me to be a member of that would be useful as I am not quite sure if I am in the right place.  

Thanks in advance

Les