My Brother Needs Help & Direction

My brother is 37 years old and was just diagnosed with stomach cancer. The surgeon was going to completely remove his stomach, but when he opened him up, the surgeon reported that he saw cancerous tumors on his pancreas and throughout is abdominal area. I am so new to all this and I want to be able to offer my brother any assistance I can. The oncologist is waiting for the healing to be completed before he begans chemotherapy. At this point, I do not know what or where to turn. Right now, he remains in the hospital where he has been for the past 10 days and they are feeding him through IV directly into his intestines. It is an extremely slow process and he is in my opinion, starving to death. Any help and direction any of you can provide would be extremely appreciated. Please feel free to respond to me directly at my email address --Message edited by CancerCompass staff. For personal protection, email address removed. Consider private reply. Please review CancerCompass Member Guidelines at http://www.cancercompass.com/common/guidelines.html--

I am sorry to hear about your brother. I have a brother, who had stomach cancer, three times surgery, 21 cyles of Chemos, he lasted 2 and a half years.-, passed away in 08/07.  Looking back in two and a half years ago, I noticed somethings could have changed his fate.

First, he did not have a good first surgery, since the infections occurred after two weeks, that made him delayed for his Chemo therapy. this we can not control, only pray.

Second, after he was stable, he should have a right diet for cancer patient, not just ate what he want, follow guidelines of Dr. Randy Pausch ( you can go on line and watch his video, he also has pancrea cancer).

Make sure he keep a good insurance like PPO if he had.

During his Chemo Therapy, my brother only had me as a care giver, lack of family supports can lead to cancer recurrance.

You may look into another help in herbal remedy, you have to hang tough to walk him through this.

God bless him and you.

In my experience, pancreatic cancer is one of the most destructive. Its is rarely reported as few people survive for more than a year even when they have a Whipples procedure to remove part of the pancreas. On the plus side, there are now trials taking place, and I would think a reasonably young person would be considered. The internet is a good source of information. Don't let the GP fob you off either - because of the low survival rate and high cost of pancreatic cancer, cases will often get referred straight to the MacMillan nurses for palliative care only.

I truly hope that the news about your brother stays positive.

It is not uncommon for stomach cancer to move to the pancreas, spleen and other nearby organs after it penatrates the stomach wall. I'm not clear, did they remove his stomach or just stop the surgery. In my wife's case, they would have continued with the surgery and removed as much as they could including her spleen, pancreas, part of her liver, etc. As it turned out, they only removed her stomach.

 I'll be happy to answer any questions, realizing I'm not a doc - just way too long in the battle.

 Greg