Hi All- I have posted on here a few times about my younger sister battling stomach cancer.
She went into the hospital on 3/1 (day before she was to start a new regimen) with a bowel obstruction and had part of her colon removed and now has an ileostomy. Unfortunately, she was at the hospital closet to where we live and her oncologist doesn't have privileges there so he was not able to oversee her care.
During her stay in the hospital, her kidneys almost shut down and they had to put tubes directly into her kidneys to drain the urine out into bags that are attached. She then ended up with a small bowel obstruction (took the docs 2 days to decide... yes, no, yes). They put an NG tube in and were hoping it would decompress the obstruction and it would pass. She spent about 27 days in that hospital. They called every specialist in for everything and were not the least bit concerned that she had cancer. As a matter of fact, we were told their oncologist disagreed with the treatment her oncologist was giving as it was "too aggressive". I don't know about you but I'd want an aggressive oncologist if I'm battling for my life. She barely ate for this whole time. The surgeon bruntly told her with the extent of her disease she was not curable. Pissed me off as who is HE to make that call.
We finally moved her to the hospital where her oncologist has privileges once we realized that the other docs weren't going to do anything. Once at the other hospital, they actively worked to resolved her small bowel obstruction and were successful. They also started her on IV nutrition. Thank God. Her bile duct became obstructed and she ended up having a biliary tube placed directly into her liver to drain to a bag (once again) outside her body. The oncologist started her on chemo in the hospital and told her he'd be as aggressive as he could as long as it wasn't hurting her. He did move her to Stage IV though as her time in the hospitals allowed her cancer to spread.
She ended up staying in the hospitals a total of 50 days and was just released a week ago. She is at home getting IV nutrition at night. She is on chemo as well. Unfortunately, it is making her nauseated and she is having dry heaves come in waves. Her legs are so swollen from all the fluids and the fact that she was malnourished. Hopefully, that will resolve but she is not eating hardly at all.
It seems that it has been bad news after bad news for her. First all the hospital stuff, ileostomy, nephrostomies, etc.. We tested her tumor against some chemo drugs and all were non-responsive except for one that was barely responsive. However, it wasn't a test of all drus or drug combinations. We also did a test to see if her tumor was HER2 positive and it wasn't. One good thing is that it did test KRAS for wild type which means she should respond to Erbitux.
I am so worried about her. I know she feels awful. Oncologist says this is her low point (counts and all) from chemo. She is getting 2 units of blood today. She seems really down in the dumps and I am afraid she is losing her determination and fight and I don't know how to encourage her. She has GOT to eat but we can't force her so what do I do? Her circulating tumor cells were at 140 before she began treatment again and are now down in the 80s so that is positive. (anything 5+ is not good).
Any ideas... suggestions... how do you cope seeing your loved one like this? How do we get her to eat? We've tried all the stuff... small meals, soft foods, shakes, etc... she has no interest usually.
Tracy