Chemo Patient-v poorly

[mummynumnum]

My dear MIL has stage iv stomach cancer. Secondary and was over 10yrs ago a breast cancer. It Is not curable.Hormonal treatment stopped working and started chemo on Thurs. She is v thin and barely eating and on oramorph, patches and still calling nurses out for injection. To boot now the chemo is making her v ill. We have been home all hols but family all going back to work tomorrow. Worried about her being on her own. Is there any scope for her going to a hospice for a while? She went after she had a stent put in and was in lots of pain.

bump for you so hopefully someone has some advise..

She does have a named nurse but she likes to see her and docs on own so not q sure what has been said. Think she wants to try it as a last chance saloon as she puts it. She is alone in day apart from lunch when my dh nips home from work and in the eve her 4 children rotate who stays with her. she has perked up from initial chemo last thurs but is having horrific nightmares and they have told her to stop taking her ad's. Sorry to hear about your mum.

It is awful seeing such a strong lady so scared and frightened. Let's hope the chemo helps.

6 sessions. 1 every 3 weeks. All the best to you and yours also

She is still experiencing lots of breakthrough pain as well. Upped morphine patches but pain has corm back again. Surely she shouldn't be in pain???

Think she is going to go into hospice tomorrow and go on morphine syringe driver and try and get pain controlled so she can face her 2nd out of 6 chemo. She did not cope well with the first and wonder if being put on this morphine syringe is a bad sign.

Going into the hospice is the best way to get her pain controlled - they are totally brilliant at sorting out pain control, and aren't frightened of morphine (lots of non palliative care docs are). Going on a syringe driver will help them work out what background level of morphine she needs and then prescribe the right patch - the patches seem to take 2-3 days to get to their correct strength in the bloodstream so its hard to get them right quickly.

Thanks for that info. Yes they have upped patches but don't seem to be doing q enough and most evenings she Is calling docs out so she can have an injection.

scan showed spread to pelvice, more bones and sternum now. Some good news would be nice. None at the monent

Been told by hospice today she does not have very long. What do I tell my 5yr old. She knows nanny is poorly but how should I approach this news with her?

My 5 year old understood when I told him that 'G Grandmas body is worn out and broken, and the Drs medicine can't mend it anymore, so her body is going to stop working and she'll die' . You may have to repeat a few times that when someone dies they don't come back - he seemed to find that hard.
I'm so very sorry that your MIls life is drawing to a close.

We went up today as doc said visit sooner rather than later. Perked up a bit. Docs have talked to her about stopping chemo. She says she wont as knows that will be end. Doc says as she is q young she is fighting the thought of death. For now have told dd that nanny is very poorly.

I am a little earlier on in this same journey with my mother. Thanks for posting. I hope I can call on you guys for some advice as we progress. I started the dying discussion with our little ones using Goodbye Mog - book from the series about the cat. We are doing lots of talking about granny being VERY old (even though she isn't really) and SO SO tired.

Thanks fluppy! We did phone dd5 school and they said they would send some books home as well. They were a very good source of support.

Children are actually a lot more resilient than we give them credit for. My dear mum died on Saturday following a short battle with cancer and although all the grandchildren are understandably upset they do just get on with it. My mum was only diagnosed 6th Dec, told it was terminal two weeks after that and admitted to a hospice the following day where she stayed until the end.

Wishing you lots of strength to deal with what's to come. It's still very raw for me and it's truely heartbreaking to see your mum go through this.