My sister was diagnosed with this cancer a year ago. They said it was inoperable due to the artieries wrapped around it and gave her 2 months. Finally, a great surgeon decided he would do the surgery but gave her little chance of surviving it. Long story short, the whipple was performed succesfully in July 2011.
Other than most of the pain, problems eating and weight loss, we thought she was on her way to recovery.
The doctors wanted her to do chemo immediately after, due to finding some residual in her lymph nodes but my sister was more of afraid of chemo than the cancer.
I found an experimental treatment being done by an Oncologist who cured himself of deadly melanoma and started a group called neoplas.org .
My sister was injecting herself at home with a large dose of Interferon and taking a huge amount of lovastatin every other day. Her side affects were like a severe case of the flue but she kept her hair and no naseau. It's premise is to boost your own immune system to fight the cancers return.
After several clean CT Scans, she elected to discontinue the treatments against her doctors advice.
She was feeling better each day until about 2 weeks ago when the pain resurfaced and she lost her appettite completely. Then she could hold nothing down, with every meal and even water coming back up soon after injesting. She became severely dehydrated and was readmitted to the hospital.
The ER diagnosed it as "Colitis" gave her antibiotics and sent her home. It worsened and then her stomach swelled up like she was 4 months pregnant.
Back into the hospital she went with more tests. That was over a week ago and the ER doctor said her cancer had returned and was spreading very fast to the intestines and colon. She started to say her good-byes to family.
The surgeon who performed the first whipple said "Hold Up!" He's not willing to say the cancer has returned full blown and in fact says her symptoms have him baffled. Whatever it is, he says is rare but can't say much more until test on the fluids comes back.
Now, she was sent home again for the weekend since she can keep half of her foods down but she has told me her ankles, feet and back are now swollen too. She has gained 7 pounds in fluid over the past 5 days or so. Her fever spikes but is able to urinate some, it having stopped all together when in the hospital.
Has anyone else had these symptoms or how did you know when the cancer returned? I always thought it would spread to the liver or lungs but not first to the intestines and colon.
I'm just looking for some hope that it's something she can recover from.
Alethea