Partner waiting game if treatable or palliative

Hi, I’m sorry you and your partner are going through this-  I was in a similar position a few weeks ago, hubby (age 55) was diagnosed 6 August.  The waiting is excruciating and I know for us it felt every appointment for a while was more terrible information.  What I can say is that our experience has been that the gastrointestinal teams are fantastic- we started in local hospital but ended up in regional due to complexities.  It’s a terrifying process and I guess we put our faith in his surgeon as being so motivated to get my husband to a “curative” stage, particularly as he is younger than most patients - your partner is younger again. This support group has been helpful for me and I hope you find that too.  
take care and give yourself a lot of compassion- this is tough at our end too 

Laura 

Thank you for your reply. I'm just sat in bed stunned from yesterday and crying. I was looking at the faces of the staff who looked so worried as if there is no hope then them asking if he wanted to ring his mum who lives in another part of the country. It felt so helpless I kept saying he's only on his 40s. Now I think we had to push for tests because he wasn't feeling right in himself and getting fobbed off because of age and I'm left thinking should we have pushed harder. I honestly expected good news today then wait a week and highly possible it's palliative only.

Hi, I’m so sorry to hear your news, I’m keeping everything crossed for you that you will receive good news and a treatment plan can be put in place for you, just know it’s ok to feel like you are at the moment x

For me I find I just need to concentrate on the next stage as too many ifs and maybes and yes most of it so grim.  We have 3 kids, our youngest is 9 years old and I’m trying to be strong for them too, if I think too far ahead it’s inevitably about our kids not having their dad and the lifelong impact that. I’ve decided these thoughts aren’t helpful right now so maybe i am being a bit blinkered but that’s what’s keeping me sane right now.

Also, we were expecting stage 4, but the pathology after his gastrectomy was T3 N1 M0, so when he gets home from hospital I plan to celebrate that. The team were very frank with us at outset and told us that they may not be able to do anything and prognosis was 6-9 months if they couldn’t do surgery. He couldn’t get chemo.  We ended up having a staging laparoscopy very quickly from that appointment but I still feel that was one of the bleakest times for us both. 

Be kind to yourself.  I’m always trying to find glimmers of hope for my own sanity x 

Thanks again. It does help to chat to someone in similar situation. I think yesterday I was on autopilot today the emotion has come. We had plans to travel abroad and it has all gone in blink of an eye. 

I lost my mum to cancer 15 years ago and that was bad news after bad news so it feels like history repeating itself. It sounds bad but friends parents have had cancer and had great outcomes and I think why is it me and people I love why do we get the worst news and everyone else gets positive. Of course it's great for them but I feel like they don't understand. x

Hi I was diagnosed stage 4 stomach cancer last December, also given very little hope of surviving the year, had six rounds of chemo and it had shrunk the tumour and  they told me may be able to get it into a dormant state, there is always hope, I went thru a deep depression for a month after diagnosis, but now I’m really not worried about future, I try to solve one problem at a time and live one day at a time, I did tell oncologist I didn’t care what he said of how long I may have left , I wasn’t going to let it beat me, try to be strong and hope for best outcome 

Spot on with your attitude. Keep it up.

Hi Jon, thank you for the response and I'm so pleased to hear yours has really responded after little hope. I honestly didn't expect to be told wait yet another week and the looks on their faces well it said it all really. I'm going to show my partner the hope from your story as he really isn't doing well at the moment. Crazy thing is he's eating fine, still working etc and you wouldn't think to look at him there is anything going on. I hope your strong attitude can be a glimmer to us.

I’ve got so much support from family and friends, I could not wish for better , hope everything works out , palliative care doesn’t mean it’s the end it’s there to improve quality of life, I’ve got appointments with my oncologist next week to get results of last ct scan ,im hoping for best, I’m planning a better Christmas than family had last year,

Thank you Jon, I showed my partner your story and it did perk him up so we went out for lunch today and walk in the park. It's so hard with the unknown. I think they need to re think the word palliative even my close friend in health care was very negative thinking it was just end of life. I actually found an article explaining it which again helped a bit. 

I'm sending positive thoughts for your appointments too, it's good to chat on here and see positive posts, hope you have a wonderful Christmas this time round. I'm trying to take one day at a time and do feel a little more hopeful x