Cancer advice needed please.

[tellmewhy]

In June my DIL's dad was took ill.To cut a long story short he ended up having a mass removed from his bowl.He was told at the time that even if it was cancer they had now removed it and he no longer had cancer.
A month later at a follow up appointment it was dicided to put him on a course of chemo,just to be on the safe side.
Then a couple of weeks ago he was took ill again.This time he was told he had pancreatic cancer.They have now decided to stop the chemo and not offer any more treatment.
To me this doesn't sound good.Anyone any advice or experiance.I want to support my DIL but i don't want to give false hope.

mcmillan

I really cannot fault the McMillan website its got every concievable answer

Hope it helps

am so sorry for your dil's dad tbh if they have stopped treatment i think you know the answer yourself. i dont think pancreatic cancer is a very easy cancer to treat. i might be wrong and i hope i am. maybe the nhs website might have some info on this. i know when my stepdad had cancer i was so grateful my mum told me the truth instead of giving me false hope. good luck and i hope everything works out ok

Re personal experience.

TBH No it doesn't sound good (mil has secondary cancer and sadly it is incurable .. once it spreads they can manage it, offer chemo to try and halt it but soemtimes it has gone too far.

Thats where he is at the moment.
Quality of life, easing symptoms, coming to terms

I would imagine the McMillan nurses will have been in touch and hes probably now back under the care of the GP/district nursing team.They may need to do an OT assessment to help with independant living.. They can supply any medical equipment (mil now has a hospital bed and oxygen machine/shower aids etc)

McMillan also help with the financial side (forms for carers allowance/blue badges// etc)

MIL has just (today) gone in a hospice for respite care. But she is probably a lot father down the road than your DIL's dad.

Sorry I've babbled its all a bit raw today but I hope its helped.

Thanks for the link,i will have a look.
addicted i think i do know the answer.
How can i best support my DIL?She is very close to her mom and dad and is taking this very hard.

Sagacious thank you for taking the time to post.I'm so sorry you are going through this with your mil too.
Your post has helped alot,thank you so much.

At the moment DIL's dad is fairly healthy.Which of course makes it hard to believe what is happening.They are such a lovely family, i wish i could make it all go away for them.

McMillan nurses are fantastic. maybe you could encourage you dil to contact them for a bit of advice and support. when my stepdad was ill with cancer i asked him for the truth about his future and he was honest with me for which i am grateful. it is devestating to hear but at least you can get your head round the idea of them not being around for much longer. so sorry your dil has to go through this.

Pancreatic cancer is a real b*stard I also think that, as they've stopped treatment, tht is your answer, I'm sorry.

My FIL is a rare survivor of pancreatic cancer - the main reason being that it hadn't spread. He was (is) incredibly lucky.

I'm sorry. Pancreatic cancer is a nasty thing, and I think you are wise to try and prepare her for the worst

It's possible the bowel tumour was a secondary from the pancreas.

If they have stopped chemo this will be in order for him to maintain as good a quality of life as possible in the time he has left.

There should be decent palliative treatment available to ease any symptoms that are troubling him.

Very sorry to hear this.

Sorry to hear this. I can only echo what the others say. The decision to stop treatment is not taken lightly.

The Macmillan website is great. There are forums as well which might help.

Thank you all for your replies.I feel like you are all giving me the help i need to support my DIL.I just hope i can support her has well has MN supports me and others like me.
I feel you are all right in saying stopping treatment means there is nothing more they can do.
Flightattendant i have wondered myself if maybe the bowl tumour was a secondary from the pancreas.
I feel so sorry for the whole family.
Thank you all again.

My dad died of pancreatic cancer last september. They said they had caught it early and so he had an op to remove it but when they saw it they said the tumour was attatched to a major blood vessel so they couldn't take it out. He lived for 2 years and was reasonably well until the last few weeks.

Im so sorry to hear about your DIL's dad. It does sound like the bowel was a secondary as they did tell us that my dad may get secondaries in his liver or bowel.

Hope your DIL gets to spend some quality time with her dad now, and that he stays as well as can be expected for as long as possible. Such an awful awful thing

Just doing an up date.
DIL's dad has been in hospital for nearly 5 weeks now.He has had three different ops and they haven't worked.He can no longer swallow and keeps being sick.
They are now waiting for the end to come.He has been moved to a side room,so the family can be with him.
I wish i could do some thing to help.

DIL's dad past away yesterday morning.
This life can be crap some times.

That's very sad tellmewhy, I'm sure it will be a great comfort to her that she has such a caring and supportive MIL. Best wishes to you all.

Thank you KurriKurri.