1 month to live

I am new to this sight and looking for answers for my family. My uncle was diagnosed with cancer just over a year ago. We were told it was at the bottom of his esophagus and on a small part at the top of his stomach. He went through Chemo and Radiation treatments to shrink the tumor before surgery to remove it. Just before his surgery, the doctors ran some tests and said it looked like the treatments had shrunk the tumor significantly and they should have no problem removing it. 

 He went in for surgery to remove the tumor 12/21/07. During surgery he also had a stomach tube inserted so that he could be "fed" while he recovered. The doctors said they were fairly confident that they got all of the cancerous tissue. They ran some test after my uncle had recovered from the surgery and said that they had got all of the cancer, he was cancer free and needed no follow up chemo or radiation. 

 Shortly after he went home, he began to have an some digestion problems. Everything he tried to eat would come back up. He went back into the hospital, and the doctors discovered that his appetite nerve had been cut during surgery, but could not figure out why he could not keep anything down.  They discovered a bowel infection, treated it and sent him back home again. He was able to eat for about a week, then the vomiting problem began again. He went back to the hospital. This continued for the next couple of months with the doctors not really being able to find the problem.

His most recent hospital stay was in May. He went in at the beginning of May and the doctors began poking and prodding and running a lot of tests. He was in there for 3 1/2 weeks before the doctors finally said that they thought he had some sort of blockage and that it was cancer and they didn't think they could do anything. They did an exploratory surgery to confirm the cancer diagnosis and said he had multiple layers of cancer in his stomach and that there was nothing they could do. He had about a month to live.

My whole family is at a loss. We don't understand how they kept telling us he was cancer free if he wasn't, how not one of the multiple blood tests they took showed any signs of cancer, how he had so many hospital stays after his surgery for the same thing and they couldn't diagnose the problem until now when he has one month left to live???

 Has anybody had a similar experience? Does anyone think that the hospital is to blame? Did they miss something??? Anyone that can help answer some of my questions or shed some light on the situation, please respond. 

 Thank you.

I have had simmilar.  My wife age 30 diagnosed with stomach cancer june  07.  went through surgery, chemo, radiation.  after it was all done she was cancer free. two PET scans later she was still cancer free last one was in 042208. on 050908 she was re diagnosed with cancer when the Dr. went in to remove her gullbladder.  the sewed her back up and gave her 6 months to live.  she made 1 1/2 months.  to the very end the cancer never showed up in her blood tests, and it never showed up on her PET scans, and was not recognizable as cancer or a mass on a CT scan.  but the largest turmer encased her liver, gulblader and was attached to her stomach and intestines.    Dr. can't explain it and say that some cancer in hard to detect.

CAT & PET scans are not 100% accurate.  Are they better than nothing?  Well yeah, but there are so many layers of tissue that the cancer can hide in.

The only real way to see cancer with your own naked eyes which 9/10 requires cutting a patient open.

Yes, we had the same type of problem. We went to two or three differnt doctors over the passed two years. My grandma had been loosing a love of weight.. and she'd been declining the amount of food she'd eat per day (which is the only reason she's still alive). The doctors said it was acid reflux disease, an ulcer an a hernia. They treated her with medicine for the acid and she was still in so much pain shen she ate. She'd been vomitting a lot, and had blood in her urine. We finally took her to a third/fourth doctor, and they found that she has not just one, but two tumors in her stomach. One was malignant. By the time we found it it was too late for treatment. She was diagnosed on April 16, 2008 and the prognosis was 3 months to live. She's still here. In 8 days she will have beaten what the doctor said. I don't know if she'll live because she isn't doing so well.. but don't put all your faith into the doctors.. Doctors can be extremly frustrating. Especially whe, if they'd found this the first time around.. we would have been able to stop this.

I'll be praying

Taylor

The truth is nobody can predict the actual outcome of a human life.  My father was diagnosed July 10, 2007 and was given about 6 months.  So far he ECLIPSED his prognosis by 6 months. 

Tomorrow will be one year since diagnose.

Congrats!! Thats amazing.