Hello everyone, I’ve spent the last 24 hours reading many of your stories and I’m grateful that you’ve all come here to share as this has already helped me. Unfortunately we just found out my dad (56) has stomach cancer with a tumour in the duodenum. He’d had little to no symptoms, had started on indigestion medication a few months before but then he suddenly started being violently sick. At first it was thought to be a viral bug but as it continued then the weeks and weeks and weeks of investigation began. Everything seemed to happen back to front. CT scan, colonoscopy then endoscopy. CT scan showed a blockage in the duodenum, everything else looked clear. Colonoscopy all clear. During endoscopy the blockage was confirmed as a large polyp which explained the fact all his food had to keep coming back up. Told it didn’t appear malignant, go on liquid diet for now. Then biopsies come back to say cancer in stomach and the polyp which I guess we now call tumour. Next he has a PET scan tomorrow and hopefully the diagnostic laparoscopy early next week to see if it has spread, if not, they will operate. If it has we are told it will be incurable. This is a huge blow for us all. I’m 30, my brother only 28 and I’m currently six months pregnant with my first child. My dad is still so young and to go from having no major warning signs to the sickness coming on suddenly to this news, it all just feels incredibly cruel. I’m so looking forward to them becoming grandparents, I feel like my whole world is being torn apart and I have zero control over any of it. I want to remain hopeful but it is challenging. We are all trying to stay positive. Im somebody who throws herself into researching everything and gathering as much information as possible, anticipating every outcome.
i do have some questions that I hope someone on here may be able to help with.
From reading online, cancer in the duodenum seems to be referred to as small bowel cancer, but if Dad has a tumour there and also biopsies coming back positive in the stomach, is it stomach cancer, small bowel or both? There’s been no mention of which is the source but if the tumour is in the duodenum am I right to think that is the source and it’s spread into the stomach?
Ive seen discussions about second opinions, if the results determine that my dads consultant won’t operate. What is the process for getting a second opinion? For example if I paid for a second opinion from Mr Asif Chaudry at the Royal Marsden and he determined surgery could be possible, would we then have any opportunity to get that surgery with him on the NHS or would it be private? My parents live in the North East so I don’t know if it’s done on area? Does anyone have any other recommendations for specialists in the North if this may be the case?
I know we’ve been told to take things day by day and wait till we have all the results but I feel like I should be doing something useful in the meantime.
After having a diagnostic laparoscopy how long should we expect to wait for the results?
Aside from all of this, I really want to know what I can do or how I can be around my dad to help him. I don’t want to make things harder for him or for him to spend his time worrying about me. I won’t be bombarding him with all of this. I live five hours away from them which makes all of this a whole lot harder but I’m going to stay with them for a few weeks over Christmas now. It will be far from our usual Christmas with dad on his liquid diet, he’s lost a lot of weight and very weak and tired. But I think my best approach is to try keep spirits up. I was thinking of encouraging a small walk together every day, is this a good idea? I don’t want to do anything that will make him lose weight any quicker but I’ve read it’s good to keep exercising? He’s just got the high cal high nutrient shakes on prescription so they should help boost up his calories more. I found a recipe for a mince pie milkshake that I will make for us all whilst I’m there. Im just clinging on to anything good that I can do really. Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
And sorry my message is so long, if you got this far, thank you! Hopefully hear from some of you soon. Wishing everyone as good a Christmas as can possibly be had in these situations x
