Somethings Not Right

Two years ago my mother underwent a gastrectomy after being diagnosed with State 4 stomach cancer.   She started out with chemo and then had the surgery to remove her stomach.  After recovering my the surgery she again had another round of chemo.  Since then she has been doing relatively fine, even gained a little weight.  She has her routine doctors appointments with her Oncologist and her routine CAT and PET scans and everything has been clean.  In March she started having a lot of bloating and stomach pain.  She went to her regular doctor who (after going through her medical history) told her she was having a flare up with her diverticulosis.  He gave her an antibiotic and she felt better for a while.  She again started feeling discomfort after eating and made an appointment with her gastic doctor.  She just had an endoscopy and he could find nothing wrong.  Said her surgeon did a beautiful job creating a "Pouch" and that there was no scar tissue.  Even though this was good news since we thought something had happened to her pouch, he still wants her to have more test to find out whats going on.  He ordered her another upper GI and another PET scan.  He's hoping something will show up.  Since he could only go so far he's thinking whatever is going on is on the outside where he can not scope.  Needless to say we are all so concerned that even though all her scans showed nothing that this cancer has spread.  Has any body out there every experienced something like this.  All her symptoms are almost identical to when she first was diagnosed with stomach cancer.  Having difficulty swallowing, lots of bloat and gas after eating and no appetite.  She is also losing weight because she is doesn't want to eat because of the pain and discomfort afterwards. 

My husband had his entire stomach and part of his esophagus removed due to cancer.  By eating, he stretched his small intestine and it formed its own "pouch".  The symptoms you describe are the same ones my husband has had since the surgery.  He didn't require radiation or chemo but eating is torture...uncomfortable more than painful. The gas and  poor bowell functions may stay with him forever, according to the surgeon. It's been 11 months and he has finally gained 2 pounds from his lowest weight.  He has no energy, though. 

My point to you is that the symptoms you describe now may be the normal dispensation of the disease and not a "relapse" as you fear.  I hope I am right.  Good luck to you and your family.

Wendie

Thanks for the info.  Mom was really doing quit well and not having any problems eating.  She had put on some weight and could eat almost anything without problems.  This all just started within the last couple of months so this is why we are all concerned it might be something else.  More tests next week to make sure it's nothing more serious.